
Qass. 







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Book ^__ 



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SARTOR RESARTUS: 



THE 



,FE AND OPINIONS OF HERR TEUFELSDROCKH. 



IN THREE BOOKS. 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



Sftetn 23ennad)tm§ f rote fjewttdj wett unfc butt I 

2>ie Beit ift mem 23ennacl)tm&, mein 2lcfec ift He Sett. 

©oetfie. 

[1831.] 



FORTIETH THOUSAND OF THIS EDIT/ON. 



LONDON: 
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 

2?a 



LONDON : 
ftOBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.l 



Library of Congress 

By transfer from 
State Department. 

■AY 3 1 1927 



SARTOR RESARTUS. 



BOOK FIRST. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY. 

Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how 
the Torch of Science has now been brandished and borne about, 
with more or less effect, for five-thousand years and upwards ; 
how, in these times especially, not only the Torch still burns, 
and perhaps more fiercely than ever, but innumerable Rush- 
lights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, are also glancing 
in every direction, so that not the smallest cranny or doghole 
in Nature or Art can remain unilluminated, — it might strike 
the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little or no- 
thing of a fundamental character, whether in the way of Philo- 
sophy or History, has been written on the subject of Clothes. 

Our Theory of Gravitation is as good as perfect : Lagrange, 
it is well known, has proved that the Planetary System, on this 
scheme, will endure forever ; Laplace, still more cunningly, even 
guesses that it could not have been made on any other scheme. 
Whereby, at least, our nautical Logbooks can be better kept ; 
and water-transport of all kinds has grown more commodious. 
Of Geology and Geognosy we know enough : what with the la- 

6 



2 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

bours of our Werners and Huttons, what with the ardent genius 
of their disciples, it has come about that now, to many a Royal 
Society, the Creation of a World is little more mysterious than 
the cooking of a dumpling ; concerning which last, indeed, there 
have been minds to whom the question, How the apples were 
got in> presented difficulties. Why mention our disquisitions on 
the Social Contract, on the Standard of Taste, on the Migrations 
of the Herring? Then, have we not a Doctrine of Rent, a Theory 
of Value ; Philosophies of Language, of History, of Pottery, of 
Apparitions, of Intoxicating Liquors ? Man's whole life and en- 
vironment have been laid open and elucidated ; scarcely a frag- 
ment or fibre of his Soul, Body, and Possessions, but has been 
probed, dissected, distilled, desiccated, and scientifically decom- 
posed : our spiritual Faculties, of which it appears there are not 
a few, have their Stewarts, Cousins, Royer Collards : every cel- 
lular, vascular, muscular Tissue glories in its Lawrences, Majen- 
dies, Bichats. 

How, then, comes it, may the reflective mind repeat, that 
the grand Tissue of all Tissues, the only real Tissue, should have 
been quite overlooked by Science, — the vestural Tissue, namely, 
of woollen or other cloth ; which Man's Soul wears as its out- 
most wrappage and overall ; wherein his whole other Tissues are 
included and screened, his whole Faculties work, his whole Self 
lives, moves, and has its being ? For if, now and then, some 
straggling broken-winged thinker has cast an owl's-glance into 
this obscure region, the most have soared over it altogether 
heedless ; regarding Clothes as a property, not an accident, as 
quite natural and spontaneous, like the leaves of trees, like the 
plumage of birds. In all speculations they have tacitly figured 
man as a Clothed Animal; whereas he is by nature a Naked 
Animal; and only in certain circumstances, by purpose and de- 
vice, masks himself in Clothes. Shakespeare says, we are crea- 
tures that look before and after : the more surprising that we do 
not look round a little, and see what is passing under our very 
eyes. 

But here, as in so many other cases, Germany, learned, in- 
defatigable, deep-thinking Germany comes to our aid. It is, after 
all, a blessing that, in these revolutionary times, there should be 
one country where abstract Thought can still take shelter; that 
while the din and frenzy of Catholic Emancipations, and Rotten 



chap. i. PRELIMINARY. 3 

Boroughs, and Revolts of Paris, deafen every French and every 
English ear, the German can stand peaceful on his scientific 
watch-tower ; and, to the raging, struggling multitude here and 
elsewhere, solemnly, from hour to hour, with preparatory bla.st 
of cowhorn, emit his Hbret ihr Herren und lassefs Euch sagenj 
in other words, tell the Universe, which so often forgets that 
fact, what o'clock it really is. Not unfrequently the Germans 
have been blamed for an unprofitable diligence ; as if they struck 
into devious courses, where nothing was to be had but the toil 
of a rough journey; as if, forsaking the gold-mines of finance 
and that political slaughter of fat oxen whereby a man himself 
grows fat, they were apt to run goose-hunting into regions of 
bilberries and crowberries, and be swallowed up at last in remote 
peat-bogs. Of that unwise science, which, as our Humorist ex- 
presses it, 

' By geometric scale 
Doth take the size of pots of ale ;' 

still more, of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seen 
vigorously thrashing mere straw, there can nothing defensive be 
said. In so far as the Germans are chargeable with such, let 
them take the consequence. Nevertheless be it remarked, that 
even a Russian steppe has tumuli and gold ornaments ; also 
many a scene that looks desert and rock-bound from the distance, 
will unfold itself, when visited, into rare valleys. Nay, in any 
case, would Criticism erect not only finger-posts and turnpikes, 
but spiked gates and impassable barriers, for the mind of man ? 
It is written, ' Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall 
be increased.' Surely the plain rule is, Let each considerate 
person have his way, and see what it will lead to. For not this 
man and that man, but all men make up mankind, and their 
united tasks the task of mankind. How often have we seen 
some such adventurous, and perhaps much-censured wanderer 
light on some out-lying, neglected, yet vitally momentous pro- 
vince ; the hidden treasures of which he first discovered, and 
kept proclaiming till the general eye and effort were directed 
thither, and the conquest was completed ; — thereby, in these his 
seemingly so aimless rambles, planting new standards, founding 
new habitable colonies, in the immeasurable circumambient realm 
of Nothingness and Night ! Wise man was he who counselled 
that Speculation should have free course, and look fearlessly to- 



4 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

wards all the thirty-two points of the compass, whithersoever and 
howsoever it listed. 

Perhaps it is proof of the stunted condition in which pure 
Science, especially pure moral Science, languishes among us 
English ; and how our mercantile greatness, and invaluable Con- 
stitution, impressing a political or other immediately practical 
tendency on all English culture and endeavour, cramps the free 
flight of Thought, — that this, not Philosophy of Clothes, but re- 
cognition even that we have no such Philosophy, stands here for 
the first time published in our language. What English intel- 
lect could have chosen such a topic, or by chance stumbled on 
it ? But for that same unshackled, and even sequestered con- 
dition of the German Learned, which permits and induces them 
to fish in all manner of waters, with all manner of nets, it seems 
probable enough, this abstruse Inquiry might, in spite of the re- 
sults it leads to, have continued dormant for indefinite periods. 
The Editor of these sheets, though otherwise boasting himself 
a man of confirmed speculative habits, and perhaps discursive 
enough, is free to confess, that never, till these last months, did 
the above very plain considerations, on our total want of a Phi- 
losophy of Clothes, occur to him ; and then, by quite foreign 
suggestion. By the arrival, namely, of a new Book from Pro- 
fessor Teufelsdrockh ofWeissnichtwo; treating expressly of this 
subject, and in a style which, whether understood or not, could 
not even by the blindest be overlooked. In the present Editor's 
way of thought, this remarkable Treatise, with its Doctrines, 
whether as judicially acceded to, or judicially denied, has not re- 
mained without effect. 

1 Die Kleider, ihr Werden und Wirken (Clothes, their Origin 
' and Influence) : von Diog. Teufelsdrockh, J. U. D. etc. Still- 
1 schweigen und Co gnie . Weissnichtwo, 1831. 

'Here,' says the Weissnichtwo 'sche Anzeiger, 'comes aVo- 
1 lume of that extensive, close -printed, close -meditated sort, 
1 which, be it spoken with pride, is seen only in Germany, per- 
' haps only in Weissnichtwo. Issuing from the hitherto irre- 
1 proachable Firm of Stillschweigen and Company, with every 
' external furtherance, it is of such internal quality as to set 
1 Neglect at defiance.' * * * * 'A work,' concludes the well- 
nigh enthusiastic Reviewer, ' interesting alike to the antiquary, 



chap. ii. EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 5 

' the historian, and the philosophic thinker ; a masterpiece 
1 of boldness, lynx-eyed acuteness, and rugged independent 
* Germanism and Philanthropy {derber Kemdeutschheit ^ind 
1 Menschenliebe) ; which will not, assuredly, pass current without 
1 opposition in high places ; but must and will exalt the almost 
' new name of Teufelsdrockh to the first ranks of Philosophy, 
' in our German Temple of Honour.' 

Mindful of old friendship, the distinguished Professor, in 
this the first blaze of his fame, which however does not dazzle 
him, sends hither a Presentation-copy of his Book ; with com- 
pliments and encomiums which modesty forbids the present 
Editor to rehearse ; yet without indicated wish or hope of any 
kind, except what may be implied in the concluding phrase : 
Mbchie es (this remarkable Treatise) auch im Brittischen Boden 
gedeihen / 



CHAPTER II. 

EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 

If for a speculative man, ' whose seedfield,' in the sublime 
words of the Poet, 'is Time,' no conquest is important but that 
of new ideas, then might the arrival of Professor Teufelsdrockh's 
Book be marked with chalk in the Editor's calendar. It is indeed 
an 'extensive Volume,' of boundless, almost formless contents, 
a very Sea of Thought ; neither calm nor clear, if you will ; yet 
wherein the toughest pearl-diver may dive to his utmost depth, 
and return not only with sea-wreck but with true orients. 

Directly on the first perusal, almost on the first deliberate 
inspection, it became apparent that here a quite new Branch of 
Philosophy, leading to as yet undescried ulterior results, was 
disclosed ; farther, what seemed scarcely less interesting, a quite 
new human Individuality, an almost unexampled personal cha- 
racter, that, namely, of Professor Teufelsdrockh the Discloser. 
Of both which novelties, as far as might be possible, we re- 
solved to master the significance. But as man is emphatically 
a proselytising creature, no sooner was such mastery even fairly 
attempted, than the new question arose : How might this ac- 
quired good be imparted to others, perhaps in equal need there- 
of ; how could the Philosophy of Clothes, and the Author of 



6 SARTOR RESARTUS. book I. 

such Philosophy, be brought home, in any measure, to the busi- 
ness and bosoms of our own English Nation ? For if new-got 
gold is said to burn the pockets till it be cast forth into circu- 
lation, much more may new truth. 

Here, however, difficulties occurred. The first thought na- 
turally was to publish Article after Article on this remarkable 
Volume, in such widely-circulating Critical Journals as the Editor 
might stand connected with, or by money or love procure ac- 
cess to. But, on the other hand, was it not clear that such 
matter as must here be revealed, and treated of, might endanger 
the circulation of any Journal extant ? If, indeed, all party- 
divisions in the State could have been abolished, Whig, Tory, 
and Radical, embracing in discrepant union ; and all the Jour- 
nals of the Nation could have been jumbled into one Journal, 
and the Philosophy of Clothes poured forth in incessant tor- 
rents therefrom, the attempt had seemed possible. But, alas, 
what vehicle of that sort have we, except Eraser's Magazine ? 
A vehicle all strewed (figuratively speaking) with the maddest 
Waterloo - Crackers, exploding distractively and destructively, 
wheresoever the mystified passenger stands or sits ; nay, in any 
case, understood to be, of late years, a vehicle full to overflow- 
ing, and inexorably shut ! Besides, to state the Philosophy of 
Clothes without the Philosopher, the ideas of Teufelsdrockh 
without something of his personality, was it not to insure both 
of entire misapprehension ? Now for Biography, had it been 
otherwise admissible, there were no adequate documents, no 
hope of obtaining such, but rather, owing to circumstances, a 
special despair. Thus did the Editor see himself, for the while, 
shut out from all public utterance of these extraordinary Doc- 
trines, and constrained to revolve them, not without disquietude, 
in the dark depths of his own mind. 

So had it lasted for some months ; and now the Volume on 
Clothes, read and again read, was in several points becoming 
lucid and lucent ; the personality of its Author more and more 
surprising, but, in spite of all that memory and conjecture could 
do, more and more enigmatic ; whereby the old disquietude 
seemed fast settling into fixed discontent, — when altogether un- 
expectedly arrives a Letter from Herr Hofrath Pleuschrecke, our 
Professor's chief friend and associate in Weissnichtwo, with 
whom we had not previously corresponded. The Hofrath, after 



chap. ii. EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 7 

much quite extraneous matter, began dilating largely on the 
1 agitation and attention* which the Philosophy of Clothes was 
exciting in its own German Republic of Letters ; on the deep 
significance and tendency of his Friend's Volume ; and then, at 
length, with great circumlocution, hinted at the practicability of 
conveying ' some knowledge of it, and of him, to England, and 
' through England to the distant West :' a work on Professor 
Teufeisdrockh ' were undoubtedly welcome to the Family, the 
* National, or any other of those patriotic Libraries, at present 
1 the glory of British Literature ;' might work revolutions in 
Thought ; and so forth ; — in conclusion, intimating not ob- 
scurely, that should the present Editor feel disposed to under- 
take a Biography of Teufeisdrockh, he, Hofrath Heuschrecke, 
had it in his power to furnish the requisite Documents. 

As in some chemical mixture, that has stood long evaporat- 
ing, but would not crystallise, instantly when the wire or other 
fixed substance is introduced, crystallisation commences, and 
rapidly proceeds till the whole is finished, so was it with the 
Editor's mind and this offer of Heuschrecke's. Form rose out 
of void solution and discontinuity ; like united itself with like 
in definite arrangement : and soon either in actual vision and 
possession, or in fixed reasonable hope, the image of the whole 
Enterprise had shaped itself, so to speak, into a solid mass. 
Cautiously yet courageously, through the twopenny post, appli- 
cation to the famed redoubtable Oliver Yorke was now 
made : an interview, interviews with that singular man have 
taken place ; with more of assurance on our side, with less of 
satire (at least of open satire) on his, than we anticipated ; — 
for the rest, with such issue as is now visible. As to those 
same 'patriotic Libraries? the Hofrath's counsel could only be 
viewed with silent amazement ; but with his offer of Documents 
we joyfully and almost instantaneously closed. Thus, too, in 
the sure expectation of these, we already see our task begun ; 
and this our Sartor Resartus, which is properly a ' Life and 
Opinions of Herr Teufeisdrockh,' hourly advancing. 

Of our fitness for the Enterprise, to which we have such 

• title and vocation, it were perhaps uninteresting to say more. 

Let the British reader study and enjoy, in simplicity of heart, 

what is here presented him, and with whatever metaphysical 



8 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

acumen and talent for meditation he is possessed of. Let him 
strive to keep a free, open sense ; cleared from the mists of 
prejudice, above all from the paralysis of cant ; and directed 
rather to the Book itself than to the Editor of the Book. Who 
or what such Editor may be, must remain conjectural, and even 
insignificant i 1 it is a voice publishing tidings of the Philosophy 
of Clothes ; undoubtedly a Spirit addressing Spirits : whoso hath 
ears, let him hear. 

On one other point the Editor thinks it needful to give 
warning : namely, that he is animated with a true though per- 
haps a feeble attachment to the Institutions of our Ancestors ; 
and minded to defend these, according to ability, at all hazards ; 
nay, it was partly with a view to such defence that he engaged 
in this undertaking. To stem, or if that be impossible, profit- 
ably to divert the current of Innovation, such a Volume as 
Teufelsdrockh' s, if cunningly planted down, were no despicable 
pile, or floodgate, in the logical wear. 

For the rest, be it nowise apprehended, that any personal 
connexion of ours with Teufelsdrockh, Heuschrecke, or this 
Philosophy of Clothes, can pervert our judgment, or sway us to 
extenuate or exaggerate. Powerless, we venture to promise, are 
those private Compliments themselves. Grateful they may well 
be ; as generous illusions of friendship ; as fair mementos of 
bygone unions, of those nights and suppers of the gods, when, 
lapped in the symphonies and harmonies of Philosophic Elo- 
quence, though with baser accompaniments, the present Editor 
revelled in that feast of reason, never since vouchsafed him in 
so full measure ! But what then ? Amicus Plato, magis arnica 
Veritas ; Teufelsdrockh is our friend, Truth is our divinity. In 
our historical and critical capacity, we hope we are strangers 
to all the world ; have feud or favour with no one, — save in- 
deed the Devil, with whom, as with the Prince of Lies and 
Darkness, we do at all times wage internecine war. This as- 
surance, at an epoch when puffery and quackery have reached 
a height unexampled in the annals of mankind, and even Eng- 
lish Editors, like Chinese Shopkeepers, must write on their door- 
lintels No cheating here, — we thought it good to premise. 

1 With us even he still communicates in some sort oi r mask, or muffier ; 
and, we have reason to think, under a feigned name 1— O. Y. 



chap, in. REMINISCENCES. 9 

CHAPTER III. 

REMINISCENCES. 

To the Author's private circle the appearance of this sin- 
gular Work on Clothes must have occasioned little less sur- 
prise than it has to the rest of the world. For ourselves, at 
least, few things have been more unexpected. Professor Teu- 
felsdrockh, at the period of our acquaintance with him, seemed 
to lead a quite still and self-contained life : a man devoted to 
the higher Philosophies, indeed ; yet more likely, if he published 
at all, to publish a refutation of Hegel and Bardili, both of 
whom, strangely enough, he included under a common ban ; 
than to descend, as he has here done, into the angry noisy 
Forum, with an Argument that cannot but exasperate and di- 
vide. Not, that we can remember, was the Philosophy of Clothes 
once touched upon between us. If through the high, silent, 
meditative Transcendentalism of our Friend we detected any 
practical tendency whatever, it was at most Political, and to- 
wards a certain prospective, and for the present quite specula- 
tive, Radicalism ; as indeed some correspondence, on his part, 
with Herr Oken of Jena was now and then suspected ; though 
his special contributions to the his could never be more than 
surmised at. But, at all events, nothing Moral, still less any- 
thing Didactico-Religious, was looked for from him. 

Well do we recollect the last words he spoke in our hear- 
ing ; which indeed, with the Night they were uttered in, are to 
be forever remembered. Lifting his huge tumbler of Gukguk, 1 
and for a moment lowering his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full 
coffeehouse (it was Zur Griinen Gans, the largest in Weiss- 
nichtwo, where all the Virtuosity, and nearly all the Intellect 
of the place assembled of an evening) ; and there, with low, 
soul-stirring tone, and the look truly of an angel, though whe- 
ther of a white or of a black one might be dubious, proposed 
this toast : Die Sache der Armen in Gottes tmd Teufels Namen 

(The Cause of the Poor, in Heaven's name and 's) ! One 

full shout, breaking the leaden silence ; then a gurgle of innu- 
merable emptying bumpers, again followed by universal cheer- 
1 Gukguk is unhappily only an academical— beer. 



io SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

ing, returned him loud acclaim. It was the finale of the night : 
resuming their pipes ; in the highest enthusiasm, amid volumes 
of tobacco-smoke ; triumphant, cloud-capt without and within, 
the assembly broke up, each to his thoughtful pillow. Bleibt 
dock ein echter Spass- und Galgen-vogel, said several ; meaning 
thereby that, one day, he would probably be hanged for his 
democratic sentiments. Wo steckt dock der S chalk? added they, 
looking round : but Teufelsdrockh had retired by private alleys, 
and the Compiler of these pages beheld him no more. 

In such scenes has it been our lot to live with this Philo- 
sopher, such estimate to form of his purposes and powers. And 
yet, thou brave Teufelsdrockh, who could tell what lurked in 
thee? Under those thick locks of thine, so long and lank, overlap- 
ping roof-wise the gravest face we ever in this world saw, there 
dwelt a most busy brain. In thy eyes too, deep under their 
shaggy brows, and looking out so still and dreamy, have we not 
noticed gleams of an ethereal or else a diabolic fire, and half- 
fancied that their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion, 
the sleep of a spinning-top ? Thy little figure, there as, in loose 
ill-brushed threadbare habiliments, thou sattest, amid litter and 
lumber, whole days, to 'think and smoke tobacco,' held in it a 
mighty heart. The secrets of man's Life were laid open to thee ; 
thou sawest into the mystery of the Universe, farther than an- 
other ; thou hadst in petto thy remarkable Volume on Clothes. 
Nay, was there not in that clear logically-founded Transcendent- 
alism of thine ; still more, in thy meek, silent, deep-seated Sans- 
culottism, combined with a true princely Courtesy of inward 
nature, the visible rudiments of such speculation ? But great 
men are too often unknown, or what is worse, misknown. Al- 
ready, when we dreamed not of it, the warp of thy remarkable 
Volume lay on the loom ; and silently, mysterious shuttles were 
putting-in the woof ! 

How the Hofrath Heuschrecke is to furnish biographical data, 
in this case, may be a curious question ; the answer of which, 
however, is happily not our concern, but his. To us it appeared, 
after repeated trial, that in Weissnichtwo, from the archives or 
memories of the best-informed classes, no Biography of Teufels- 
drockh was to be gathered ; not so much as a false one. He was 
a stranger there, wafted thither by what is called the course of cir- 



Chap. in. REMINISCENCES. II 

cumstances ; concerning whose parentage, birthplace, prospects, 
or pursuits, curiosity had indeed made inquiries, but satisfied 
herself with the most indistinct replies. For himself, he was a 
man so still and altogether unparticipating, that to question him 
even afar off on such particulars was a thing of more than usual 
delicacy : besides, in his sly way, lie had ever some quaint turn, 
not without its satirical edge, wherewith to divert such intrusions, 
and deter you from the like. Wits spoke of him secretly as if 
he were a kind of Melchizedek, without father or mother of any 
kind ; sometimes, with reference to his great historic and sta- 
tistic knowledge, and the vivid way he had of expressing himself 
like an eye-witness of distant transactions and scenes, they called 
him the Ewige Jude y Everlasting, or as we say, Wandering 
Jew. 

To the most, indeed, he had become not so much a Man as 
a Thing ; which Thing doubtless they were accustomed to see, 
and with satisfaction ; but no more thought of accounting for 
than for the fabrication of their daily Allgemeine Zeitung, or the 
domestic habits of the Sun. Both were there and welcome ; the 
world enjoyed what good was in them, and thought no more of 
the matter. The man Teufelsdrockh passed and repassed, in 
his little circle, as one of those originals and nondescripts, more 
frequent in German Universities than elsewhere ; of whom, though 
you see them alive, and feel certain enough that they must have 
a History, no History seems to be discoverable ; or only such 
as men give of mountain rocks and antediluvian ruins : That 
they have been created by unknown agencies, are in a state of 
gradual decay, and for the present reflect light and resist pres- 
sure ; that is, are visible and tangible objects in this phantasm 
world, where so much other mystery is. 

It was to be remarked that though, by title and diploma, 
Professor der Allerley-Wissenschaft, or as we should say in Eng- 
lish, ' Professor of Things in General,' he had never delivered 
any Course ; perhaps never been incited thereto by any public 
furtherance or requisition. To all appearance, the enlightened 
Government of Weissnichtwo, in founding their New University, 
imagined they had done enough, if 'in times like ours,' as the 
half-official Program expressed it, ' when all things are, rapidly 
' or slowly, resolving themselves into Chaos, a Professorship of 
* this kind had been established ; whereby, as occasion called, 



12 SARTOR RES ARTUS. book i. 

• the task of bodying somewhat forth again from such Chaos 
' might be, even slightly, facilitated.' That actual Lectures should 
be held, and Public Classes for the ' Science of Things in Gene- 
ral,' they doubtless considered premature ; on which ground too 
they had only established the Professorship, nowise endowed it ; 
so that Teufelsdrockh, 'recommended by the highest Names/ 
had been promoted thereby to a Name merely. 

Great, among the more enlightened classes, was the admira- 
tion of this new Professorship : how an enlightened Government 
had seen into the Want of the Age {Zeitbediirfniss) ; how at 
length, instead of Denial and Destruction, we were to have a 
science of Affirmation and Reconstruction ; and Germany and 
Weissnichtwo were where they should be, in the vanguard of 
the world. Considerable also was the wonder at the new Pro- 
fessor, dropt opportunely enough into the nascent University ; 
so able to lecture, should occasion call ; so ready to hold his 
peace for indefinite periods, should an enlightened Government 
consider that occasion did not call. But such admiration and 
such wonder, being followed by no act to keep them living, could 
last only nine days ; and, long before our visit to that scene, had 
quite died away. The more cunning heads thought it was all 
an expiring clutch at popularity, on the part of a Minister, whom 
domestic embarrassments, court intrigues, old age, and dropsy 
soon afterwards finally drove from the helm. 

As for Teufelsdrockh, except by his nightly appearances at 
the Grime Gans, Weissnichtwo saw little of him, felt little of 
him. Here, over his tumbler of Gukguk, he sat reading Jour- 
nals ; sometimes contemplatively looking into the clouds of his 
tobacco-pipe, without other visible employment : always, from 
his mild ways, an agreeable phenomenon there ; more espe- 
cially when he opened his lips for speech ; on which occa- 
sions the whole Coffee-house would hush itself into silence, as 
if sure to hear something noteworthy. Nay, perhaps to hear a 
whole series and river of the most memorable utterances ; such 
as, when once thawed, he would for hours indulge in, with fit 
audience : and the more memorable, as issuing from a head ap- 
parently not more interested in them, not more conscious of 
them, than is the sculptured stone head of some public fountain, 
which through its brass mcuth-tube emits water to the worthy 
and the unworthy ; careless whether it be for cooking victuals or 



CHAP. in. REMINISCENCES. 13 

quenching conflagrations ; indeed, maintains the same earnest 
assiduous look, whether any water be flowing or not. 

To the Editor of these sheets, as to a young enthusiastic 
Englishman, however unworthy, Teufelsdrockh opened himself 
perhaps more than to the most. Pity only that we could not 
then half guess his importance, and scrutinise him with due 
power of vision ! We enjoyed, what not three men in Weiss- 
nichtwo could boast of, a certain degree of access to the Pro- 
fessor's private domicile. It was the attic floor of the highest 
house in the Wahngasse ; and might truly be called the pinnacle 
of Weissnichtwo, for it rose sheer up above the contiguous roofs, 
themselves rising from elevated ground. Moreover, with its win- 
dows it looked towards all the four Orte, or as the Scotch say, 
and we ought to say, Airts : the sitting-room itself commanded 
three ; another came to view in the Schlafgemach (bed-room) at 
the opposite end ; to say nothing of the kitchen, which offered 
two, as it were, duplicates, and showing nothing new. So that 
it was in fact the speculum or watch-tower of Teufelsdrockh ; 
wherefrom, sitting at ease, he might see the whole life-circula- 
tion of that considerable City ; the streets and lanes of which, 
with all their doing and driving {Thun und Treiben), were for 
the most part visible there. 

" I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive," have we 
heard him say, "and witness their wax-laying and honey-mak- 
" ing, and poison-brewing, and choking by sulphur. From the 
" Palace esplanade, where music pl? t ys while Serene Highness 
'■' is pleased to eat his victuals, down to the low lane, where in 
" her door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thin livelihood, sits 
" to feel the afternoon sun, I see it all ; for, except the Schloss- 
" kirche weathercock, no biped stands so high. Couriers arrive 
" bestrapped and bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged-up 
" in pouches of leather : there, topladen, and with four swift 
" horses, rolls-in the country Baron and his household ; here, 
" on timber -leg, the lamed Soldier hops painfully along, beg- 
" ging alms : a thousand carriages, and wains, and cars, come 
" tumbling-in with Food, with young Rusticity, and other Raw 
" Produce, inanimate or animate, and go tumbling out again 
" with Produce manufactured. That living flood, pouring through 
" these streets, of all qualities and ages, knowest thou whence 
" it is coming, whither it is going? Aus der Ewigkeit, zu der 



14 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

" Ewigkeit hin : From Eternity, onwards to Eternity ! These 
"are Apparitions: what else? Are they not Souls rendered 
" visible : in Bodies, that took shape and will lose it, melting 
" into air ? Their solid Pavement is a Picture of the Sense ; 
" they walk on the bosom of Nothing, blank Time is behind 
" them and before them. Or fanciest thou, the red and yellow 
" Clothes-screen yonder, with spurs on its heels and feather in 
" its crown', is but of Today, without a Yesterday or a Tomor- 
" row; and had not rather its Ancestor alive when Hengst and 
" Horsa overran thy Island? Friend, thou seest-here a living 
" link in that Tissue of History, which inweaves all Being : 
" watch well, or it will be past thee, and seen no more." 

" Ack, mein Lieber r said he once, at midnight, when we 
had returned from the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, "it 
" is a true sublimity to dwell here. These fringes of lamplight, 
" struggling up through smoke and thousandfold exhalation, 
" some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks 
" Bootes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the Zenith 
" in their leash of sidereal fire ? That stifled hum of Midnight, 
" when Traffic has lain down to rest ; and the chariot-wheels of 
" Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are 
" bearing her to Halls roofed-in, and lighted to the due pitch 
" for her ; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to moan like 
" nightbirds, are abroad : that hum, I say, like the stertorous, 
11 unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard in Heaven ! Oh, under 
" that hideous coverlet of vapours, and putrefactions, and un- 
" imaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and 
" hid ! The joyful and the sorrowful are there ; men are dying 
" there, men are being born ; men are praying, — on the other 
" side of a brick partition, men are cursing ; and around them 
" all is the vast, void Night. The proud Grandee still lingers 
" in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within damask curtains ; 
" Wretchedness cowers into truckle-beds, or shivers hunger- 
11 stricken into its lair of straw : in obscure cellars, Ronge-et- 
11 Noir languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry 
11 Villains ; while Councillors of State sit plotting, and playing 
" their high chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The 
" Lover whispers his mistress that the coach is ready; and she, 
" full of hope and fear, glides down, to fly with him over the 
" borders : the Thief, still more silently, sets -to his picklocks 



chap. in. REMINISCENCES. 15 

" and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen first snore 
" in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and dancing- 
" rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling hearts; 
" but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous 
" and faint, and bloodshot eyes look-out through the darkness, 
" which is around and within, for the light of a stern last morn- 
■" ing. Six men are to be hanged on the morrow : comes no 
" hammering from the Rabenstein ? — their gallows must even 
" now be o' building. Upwards of five-hundred-thousand two- 
" legged animals without feathers lie round us, in horizontal 
" positions ; their heads all in nightcaps, and full of the fool- 
" ishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers 
" in his rank dens of shame ; and the Mother, with streaming 
" hair, kneels over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked lips 
" only her tears now moisten. — All these heaped and huddled 
" together, with nothing but a little carpentry and masonry be- 
" tween them ; — crammed in, like salted fish in their barrel ; — 
" or weltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed 
" vipers, each struggling to get its head above the others : such 
" work goes on under that smoke-counterpane ! — But I, mein 
" Werther, sit above it all ; I am alone with the Stars." 

We looked in his face to see whether, in the utterance of 
such extraordinary Night-thoughts, no feeling might be traced 
there ; but with the light we had, which indeed was only a sin- 
gle tallow-light, and far enough from the window, nothing save 
that old calmness and fixedness was visible. 

These were the Professor's talking seasons : most com- 
monly he spoke in mere monosyllables, or sat altogether silent 
and smoked ; while the visitor had liberty either to say what he 
listed, receiving for answer an occasional grunt ; or to look round 
for a space, and then take himself away. It was a strange apart- 
ment ; full of books and tattered papers, and miscellaneous shreds 
of all conceivable substances, ' united in a common element of 
dust.' Books lay on tables, and below tables; here fluttered a 
sheet of manuscript, there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap hastily 
thrown aside ; ink-bottles alternated with bread-crusts, coffee- 
pots, tobacco-boxes, Periodical Literature, and Bliicher Boots. 
Old Lieschen (Lisekin, 'Liza), who was his bed-maker and stove- 
lighter, his washer and wringer, cook, errand-maid, and general 
lion's-provider, and for the rest a very orderly creature, had no 



id SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

sovereign authority in this last citadel of Teufelsdrockh ; only- 
some once in the month she half-forcibly made her way thither, 
with broom and duster, and (Teufelsdrockh hastily saving his 
manuscripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery of such 
lumber as was not Literary. These were her Erdbeben (earth- 
quakes), which Teufelsdrockh dreaded worse than the pestilence; 
nevertheless, to such length he had been forced to comply. 
Glad would he have been to sit here philosophising forever, or 
till the litter, by accumulation, drove him out of doors : but Lie- 
schen was his right-arm, and spoon, and necessary of life, and 
would not be flatly gainsayed. We can still remember the an- 
cient woman; so silent that some thought her dumb; deaf also 
you would often have supposed her ; for Teufelsdrockh, and 
Teufelsdrockh only, would she serve or give heed to ; and with 
him she seemed to communicate chiefly by signs ; if it were not 
rather by some secret divination that she guessed all his wants, 
and supplied them. Assiduous old dame ! she scoured, and 
sorted, and swept, in her kitchen, with the least possible vio- 
lence to the ear ; yet all was tight and right there : hot and black 
came the coffee ever at the due moment ; and the speechless 
Lieschen herself looked out on you, from under her clean white 
coif with its lappets, through her clean withered face and wrin- 
kles, with a look of helpful intelligence, almost of benevolence. 
Few strangers, as above hinted, had admittance hither : the 
only one we ever saw there, ourselves excepted, was the Hofrath 
Heuschrecke, already known, by name and expectation, to the 
readers of these pages. To us, at that period, Herr Heuschrecke 
seemed one of those purse-mouthed, crane-necked, clean-brushed, 
pacific individuals, perhaps sufficiently distinguished in society 
by this fact, that, in dry weather or in wet, ' they never appear 
without their umbrella.' Had we not known with what 'little 
wisdom' the world is governed ; and how, in Germany as else- 
where, the ninety-and-nine Public Men can for most part be but 
mute train-bearers to the hundredth, perhaps but stalking-horses 
and willing or unwilling dupes,— it might have seemed wonder- 
ful how Herr Heuschrecke should be named <iRatJi, or Councillor, 
and Counsellor, even in Weissnichtwo. What counsel to any 
man, or to any woman, could this particular Hofrath give ; in 
whose loose, zigzag figure ; in whose thin visage, as it went jerk- 
ing to and fro, in minute incessant fluctuation, — you traced rather 



chap. in. REMINISCENCES. 17 

confusion worse confounded; at most, Timidity and physical 
Cold ? Some indeed said withal, he was ' the very Spirit cf 
Love embodied :' blue earnest eyes, full of sadness and kind- 
ness ; purse ever open, and so forth ; the whole of which, we 
shall now hope, for many reasons, was not quite groundless. 
Nevertheless friend Teufelsdrockh's outline, who indeed handled 
the burin like few in these cases, was probably the best : Er 
hat Gemiith und Geisl, hat wenigstens gehabt> dock ohne Organ, 
ohne Schicksals-Gunst j ist gegenwartig o,ber halb-zerruttet, halb- 
erstarrt, " He has heart and talent, at least has had such, yet 
without fit mode of utterance, or favour of Fortune ; and so is 
now half- cracked, half- congealed." — What the Hofrath shall 
think of this when he sees it, readers may wonder : we, safe in 
the stronghold of Historical Fidelity, are careless. 

The main point, doubtless, for us all, is his love of Teufels- 
drockh, which indeed was also by far the most decisive feature 
of Heuschrecke himself. We are enabled to assert that he hung 
on the Professor with the fondness of a Boswell for his Johnson. 
And perhaps with the like return ; for Teufelsdrockh treated his 
gaunt admirer with little outward regard, as some half-rational 
or altogether irrational friend, and at best loved him out of 
gratitude and by habit. On the other hand, it was curious to 
observe with what reverent kindness, and a sort of fatherly pro- 
tection, our Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and as he fondly 
imagined far more practically influential of the two, looked and 
tended on his little Sage, whom he seemed to consider as a living 
oracle. Let but Teufelsdrockh open his mouth, Heuschrecke's 
also unpuckered itself into a free doorway, besides his being all 
eye and all ear, so that nothing might be lost : and then, at every 
pause in the harangue, he gurgled-out his pursy chuckle of a 
cough-laugh (for the machinery of laughter took some time to 
get in motion, and seemed crank and slack), or else his twang- 
ing nasal, Bravo / Das glauV ichj in either case, by way of 
heartiest approval. In short, if Teufelsdrockh was Dalai-Lama, 
of which, except perhaps in his self-seclusion, and god-like in- 
difference, there was no symptom, then might Heuschrecke pass 
for his chief Talapoin, to whom no dough-pill he could knead 
and publish was other than medicinal and sacred. 

In such environment, social, domestic, physical, did Teufels- 
drockh, at the time of our acquaintance, and most likely does he 

c 



1 8 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

still, live and meditate. Here, perched-up in his high Wahn- 
gasse watch-tower, and often, in solitude, outwatching the Bear, 
it was that the indomitable Inquirer fought all his battles with 
Dulness and Darkness ; here, in all probability, that he wrote 
this surprising Volume on Clothes. Additional particulars : of 
his age, which was of that standing middle sort you could only 
guess at ; of his wide surtout ; the colour of his trousers, fashion 
of his broad-brimmed steeple-hat, and so forth, we might report, 
but do not. The Wisest truly is, in these times, the Greatest ; 
so that an enlightened curiosity, leaving Kings and suchlike to 
rest very much on their own basis, turns more and more to the 
Philosophic Class : nevertheless, what reader expects that, with 
all our writing and reporting, Teufelsdrockh could be brought 
home to him, till once the Documents arrive ? His Life, For- 
tunes, and Bodily Presence, are as yet hidden from us, or mat- 
ter only of faint conjecture. But, on the other hand, does not 
his Soul lie enclosed in this remarkable Volume, much more truly 
than Pedro Garcia's did in the buried Bag of Doubloons ? To 
the soul of Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, to his opinions, namely, on 
the ' Origin and Influence of Clothes,' we for the present gladly 
return. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CHARACTERISTICS. 

It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this Work 
on Clothes entirely contents us ; that it is not, like all works of 
genius, like the very Sun, which, though the highest published 
creation, or work of genius, has nevertheless black spots and 
troubled nebulosities amid its effulgence, — a mixture of insight, 
inspiration, with dulness, double-vision, and even utter blindness. 

Without committing ourselves to those enthusiastic praises 
and prophesy ings of the IVeissnichtwo sche Anzeiger, we admitted 
that the Book had in a high degree excited us to self-activity, 
which is the best effect of any book ; that it had even operated 
changes in our way of thought ; nay, that it promised to prove, 
as it were, the opening of a new mine-shaft, wherein the whole 
world of Speculation might henceforth dig to unknown depths. 
More especially it may now be declared that Professor Teufels- 



chap. iv. CHARACTERISTICS. 19 

drockh's acquirements, patience of research, philosophic and 
even poetic vigour, are here made indisputably manifest ; and 
unhappily no less his prolixity and tortuosity and manifold inep- 
titude ; that, on the whole, as in opening new mine-shafts is not 
unreasonable, there is much rubbish in his Book, though like- 
wise specimens of almost invaluable ore. A paramount popu- 
larity in England we cannot promise him. Apart from the choice 
of such a topic as Clothes, too often the manner of treating it 
betokens in the Author a rusticity and academic seclusion, un- 
blamable, indeed inevitable in a German, but fatal to his success 
with our public. 

Of good • society Teufelsdrockh appears to have seen little, 
or has mostly forgotten what he saw. He speaks-out with a 
strange plainness ; calls many things by their mere dictionary 
names. To him the Upholsterer is no Pontiff, neither is any 
Drawing-room a Temple, were it never so begilt and overhung: 
1 a whole immensity of Brussels carpets, and pier-glasses, and 
or-molu,' as he himself expresses it, ' cannot hide from me that 
1 such Drawing-room is simply a section of Infinite Space, where 
1 so many God-created Souls do for the time meet together.' To 
Teufelsdrockh the highest Duchess is respectable, is venerable ; 
but nowise for her pearl bracelets and Malines laces : in his eyes, 
the star of a Lord is little less and little more than the broad 
button of Birmingham spelter in a Clown's smock ; * each is an 
1 implement,' he says, ' in its kind ; a tag for ho king-together ; 
1 and, for the rest, was dug from the earth, and hammered on a 
* stithy before smith's fingers.' Thus does the Professor look 
in men's faces with a strange impartiality, a strange scientific 
freedom ; like a man unversed in the higher circles, like a man 
dropped thither from the Moon. Rightly considered, it is in 
this peculiarity, running through his whole system of thought, 
that all these short-comings, over-shootings, and multiform per- 
versities, take rise : if indeed they have not a second source, also 
natural enough, in his Transcendental Philosophies, and humour 
of looking at all Matter and Material things as Spirit ; whereby 
truly his case were but the more hopeless, the more lamentable. 
To the Thinkers of this nation, however, of which class it 
is firmly believed there are individuals yet extant, we can safely 
recommend the Work : nay, who knows but among the fashion- 
able ranks too, if it be true, as Teufelsdrockh maintains, that 



20 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

• within the most starched cravat there passes a windpipe and 
1 weasand, and under the thickiiest embroidered waistcoat 

* beats a heart/ — the force of that rapt earnestness maybe felt, 
and here and there an arrow of the soul pierce through ? In 
our wild Seer, shaggy, unkempt, like a Baptist living on locusts 
and wild honey, there is an untutored energy, a silent, as it 
were unconscious, strength, which, except in the higher walks 
of Literature, must be rare. Many a deep glance, and often 
with unspeakable precision, has he cast into mysterious Nature, 
and the still more mysterious Life of Man. Wonderful it is 
with what cutting words, now and then, he severs asunder the 
confusion ; shears down, were it furlongs deep, into the true 
centre of the matter ; and there not only hits the nail on the 
head, but with crushing force smites it home, and buries it.- — 
On the other hand, let us be free to admit, he is the most un- 
equal writer breathing. Often after some such feat, he will play 
truant for long pages, and go dawdling and dreaming, and mum- 
bling and maundering the merest commonplaces, as if he were 
asleep with eyes open, which indeed he is. 

Of his boundless Learning, and how all reading and litera- 
ture in most known tongues, from Sanchoniathon to Dr. Lin- 
gard, from your Oriental Shasters, and Talmuds, and Korans, 
with Cassini's Siamese Tables, and Laplace's Mecanique Celeste, 
down to Robinson C?'iisoe and the Belfast Town and Counliy 
Almanack, are familiar to him, — we shall say nothing : for un- 
exampled as it is with us, to the Germans such universality of 
study passes without wonder, as a thing commendable, indeed, 
but natural, indispensable, and there of course. A man that 
devotes his life to learning, shall he not be learned ? 

In respect of style our Author manifests the same genial 
capability, marred too often by the same rudeness, inequality, 
and apparent want of intercourse with the higher classes. Oc- 
casionally, as above hinted, we find consummate vigour, a true 
inspiration ; his burning thoughts step forth in fit burning words, 
like so many full-formed Minervas, issuing amid flame and splen- 
dour from Jove's head ; a rich, idiomatic diction, picturesque 
allusions, fiery poetic emphasis, or quaint tricksy turns ; all the 
graces and terrors of a wild Imagination, wedded to the clear- 
est Intellect, alternate in beautiful vicissitude. Were it not that 
sheer sleeping and soporific passages ; circumlocutions, repeti- 



chap. iv. CHARACTERISTICS. 21 

tions, touches even of pure doting jargon, so often intervene ! 
On the whole, Professor Teufelsdrockh is not a cultivated writer. 
Of his sentences perhaps not more than nine -tenths stand 
straight on their legs ; the remainder are in quite angular atti- 
tudes, buttressed-up by props (of parentheses and dashes), and 
ever with this or the other tagrag hanging from them ; a few 
even sprawl-out helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and 
dismembered. Nevertheless, in almost his very worst moods, 
there lies in' him a singular attraction. A wild tone pervades 
the whole utterance of the man, like its keynote and regulator ; 
now screwing itself aloft as into the Song of Spirits, or else the 
shrill mockery of Fiends ; now sinking in cadences, not with- 
out melodious heartiness, though sometimes abrupt enough, into 
the common pitch, when we hear it only as a monotonous hum ; 
of which hum the true character is extremely difficult to fix. 
Up to this hour we have never fully satisfied ourselves whether 
it is a tone and hum of real Humour, which we reckon among 
the very highest qualities of genius, or some echo of mere In- 
sanity and Inanity, which doubtless ranks below the very lowest. 
Under a like difficulty, in spite . even of our personal inter- 
course, do we still lie with regard to the Professor's moral feel- 
ing. Gleams of an ethereal love burst forth from him, soft 
wailings of infinite pity ; he could clasp the whole Universe into 
his bosom, and keep it warm ; it seems as if under that rude 
exterior there dwelt a very seraph. Then again he is so sly 
and still, so imperturbably saturnine ; shows such indifference, 
malign coolness towards all that men strive after ; and ever with 
some half-visible wrinkle of a bitter sardonic humour, if indeed 
it be not mere stolid callousness, — that you look on him almost 
with a shudder, as on some incarnate Mepfrstopheles, to whom 
this great terrestrial and celestial Round, after all, were but 
some huge foolish Whirligig, where kings and beggars, and an- 
gels and demons, and stars and street-sweepings, were chaotic- 
ally whirled, in which only children could take interest. His 
look, as we mentioned, is probably the gravest ever seen : yet 
it is not of that cast-iron gravity frequent enough among our 
own Chancery suitors ; but rather the gravity as of some silent, 
high-encircled mountain-pool, perhaps the crater of an extinct 
volcano ; into whose black deeps you fear to gaze : those eyes, 
those lights that sparkle in it, may indeed be reflexes of the 



22 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

heavenly Stars, but perhaps also glances from the region of 
Nether Fire ! 

Certainly a most involved, self-secluded, altogether enigma- 
tic nature, this of Teufelsdrockh ! Here, however, we gladly re- 
call to mind that once we saw him laugh; once only, perhaps 
it was the first and last time in his life ; but then such a peal 
of laughter, enough to have awakened the Seven Sleepers ! It 
was of Jean Paul's doing : some single billow in that vast World- 
Mahlstrom of Humour, with its heaven -kissing coruscations, 
which is now, alas, all congealed in the frost of death ! The 
large-bodied Poet and the small, both large enough in soul, sat 
talking miscellaneously together, the present Editor being privi- 
leged to listen ; and now Paul, in his serious way, was giving 
one of those inimitable ' Extra-harangues ;' and, as it chanced, 
On the Proposal for a Cast-metal King : gradually a light kin- 
dled in our Professor's eyes and face, a beaming, mantling, love- 
liest light ; through those murky features, a radiant, ever-young 
Apollo looked ; and he burst forth like the neighing of all Tat- 
tersall's, — tears streaming down his cheeks, pipe held aloft, foot 
clutched into the air, — loud, long-continuing, uncontrollable ; a 
laugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the whole 
man from head to heel. The present Editor, who laughed in- 
deed, yet with measure, began to fear all was not right : how- 
ever, Teufelsdrockh composed himself, and sank into his old 
stillness ; on his inscrutable countenance there was, if anything, 
a slight look of shame ; and Richter himself could not rouse 
him again. Readers who have any tincture of Psychology know 
how much is to be inferred from this ; and that no man who 
has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irre- 
claimably bad. How much lies in Laughter : the cipher-key, 
wherewith we decipher the whole man ! Some men wear an 
everlasting barren simper ; in the smile of others lies a cold 
glitter as of ice : the fewest are able to laugh, what can be called 
laughing, but only sniff and titter and snigger from the throat 
outwards ; or at best, produce some whiffling husky cachinna- 
tion, as if they were laughing through wool : of none such comes 
good. The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, 
stratagems, and spoils ; but his whole life is already a treason 
and a stratagem. 

Considered as an Author, Herr Teufelsdrockh has one 



chap. v. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 23 

scarcely pardonable fault, doubtless his worst : an almost total 
want of arrangement. In this remarkable Volume, it is true, 
his adherence to the mere course of Time produces, through 
the Narrative portions, a certain show of outward method ; but 
of true logical method and sequence there is too little. Apart 
from its multifarious sections and subdivisions, the Work na- 
turally falls into two Parts ; a Historical-Descriptive, and a 
Philosophical-Speculative : but falls, unhappily, by no firm line 
of demarcation ; in that labyrinthic combination, each Part over- 
laps, and indents, and indeed runs quite through the other. 
Many sections are of a debatable rubric, or even quite nonde- 
script and unnameable ; whereby the Book not only loses in 
accessibility, but too often distresses us like some mad banquet, 
wherein all courses had been confounded, and fish and flesh, 
soup and solid, oyster-sauce, lettuces, Rhine-wine and French 
mustard, were hurled into one huge tureen or trough, and the 
hungry Public invited to help itself. To bring what order we 
can out of this Chaos shall be part of our endeavour. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 

'As Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Laws' observes our Pro- 
fessor, ' so could I write a Spirit of Clothes j thus, with an Esprit 

* des Lois, properly an Esprit de Coutumes, we should have an 

* Esprit de Costumes. For neither in tailoring nor in legislat- 
1 ing does man proceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever 
1 guided on by mysterious operations of the mind. In all his 
1 Modes, and habilatory endeavours, an Architectural Idea will 
1 be found lurking ; his Body and the Cloth are the site and 
■ materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, of a Per- 
' son, is to be built. Whether he flow gracefully out in folded 
1 mantles, based on light sandals ; tower-up in high headgear, 

* from amid peaks, spangles and bell -girdles ; swell -out in 
1 starched ruffs, buckram stuffings, and monstrous tuberosities ; 
' or girth himself into separate sections, and front the world an 
' Agglomeration of four limbs, — will depend on the nature of 
' such Architectural Idea : whether Grecian, Gothic, Later-Gothic, 



24 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

* or altogether Modern, and Parisian or Anglo-Dandiacal. Again, 
1 what meaning lies in Colour ! From the soberest drab to the 
1 high-flaming scarlet, spiritual idiosyncrasies unfold themselves 
1 in choice of Colour : if the Cut betoken Intellect and Talent, 
1 so does the Colour betoken Temper and Heart. In all which, 
1 among nations as among individuals, there is an incessant, 
1 indubitable, though infinitely complex working of Cause and 
1 Effect : every snip of the Scissors has been regulated and pre- 
' scribed by ever-active Influences, which doubtless to Intelli- 
' gences of a superior order are neither invisible nor illegible. 

* For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and-Effect Philo- 
1 sophy of Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable 
1 winter-evening entertainment : nevertheless, for inferior Intel- 

* ligences, like men, such Philosophies have always seemed to 
1 me uninstructive enough. Nay, what is your Montesquieu 
1 himself but a clever infant spelling Letters from a hieroglyphi- 
1 cal prophetic Book, the lexicon of which lies in Eternity, in 
1 Heaven ? — Let any Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain, not 
1 why I wear such and such a Garment, obey such and such a 
1 Law ; but even why /am here, to wear and obey anything ! — 
1 Much, therefore, if not the whole, of that same Spirit of Clothes 

* I shall suppress, as hypothetical, ineffectual, and even imper- 
1 tinent : naked Facts, and Deductions drawn therefrom in quite 

* another than that omniscient style, are my humbler and proper 
1 province.' 

Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh has 
nevertheless contrived to take-in a well-nigh boundless extent 
of field ; at least, the boundaries too often lie quite beyond our 
horizon. Selection being indispensable, we shall here glance- 
over his First Part only in the most cursory manner. This First 
Part is, no doubt, distinguished by omnivorous learning, and 
utmost patience and fairness : at the same time, in its results 
and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the Com- 
pilers of some Library of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even 
Useless Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of these 
pages. Was it this Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had in 
view, when he recommended us to that joint-stock vehicle of 
publication, ■ at present the glory of British Literature' ? If so, 
the Library Editors are welcome to dig in it for their own 
behoof. 



chap. v. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 2$ 

To the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig- 
leaves, and leads us into interminable disquisitions of a mytho- 
logical, metaphorical, cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian 
cast, we shall content ourselves with giving an unconcerned 
approval. Still less have we to do with ' Lilis, Adam's first 
1 wife, whom, according to the Talmudists, he had before Eve, 
' and who bore him, in that wedlock, the whole progeny of 
* aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial Devils,' — very needlessly, we 
think. On this portion of the Work, with its profound glances 
into the Adam-Kadmon, or Primeval Element, here strangely 
brought into relation with the Nifl and Muspel (Darkness and 
Light) of the antique North, it may be enough to say, that its 
correctness of deduction, and depth of Talmudic and Rabbini- 
cal lore have filled perhaps not the worst Hebraist in Britain 
with something like astonishment. 

But, quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdrockh hastens from 
the Tower of Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the 
whole habitable and habilable globe. Walking by the light of 
Oriental, Pelasgic, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient 
and Modern researches of every conceivable kind, he strives to 
give us in compressed shape (as the Ntirnbergers give an Orbis 
Pictus) an Orbis Vestitusj or view of the costumes of all man- 
kind, in all countries, in all times. It is here that to the Anti- 
quarian, to the Historian, we can triumphantly say : Fall to ! 
Here is learning : an irregular Treasury, if you will ; but inex- 
haustible as the Hoard of King Nibelung, which twelve wagons 
in twelve days, at the rate of three journeys a day, could not 
carry off. Sheepskin cloaks and wampum belts ; phylacteries, 
stoles, albs ; chlamydes, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, 
trunk-hose, leather breeches, Celtic philibegs (though breeches, 
as the name Gallia Braccata indicates, are the more ancient), 
Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets, ruffs, fardingales, are brought 
vividly before us, — even the Kilmarnock nightcap is not for- 
gotten. For most part, too, we must admit that the Learning, 
heterogeneous as it is, and tumbled-down quite pell-mell, is true 
concentrated and purified Learning, the drossy parts smelted 
out and thrown aside. 

Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes touching 
pictures of human life. Of this sort the following has surprised 
us. The first purpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, 



26 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

was not warmth or decency, but ornament. ' Miserable indeed/ 
says he, ' was the condition of the Aboriginal Savage, glaring 
1 fiercely from under his fleece of hair, which with the beard 
1 reached down to his loins, and hung round him like a matted 

■ cloak ; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell. 
1 He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild- 

* fruits ; or, as the ancient Caledonian, squatted himself in mo- 
1 rasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey ; without imple- 
1 ments, without arms, save the ball of heavy Flint, to which, 

* that his sole possession and defence might not be lost, he had 

* attached a long cord of plaited thongs ; thereby recovering as 
' well as hurling it with deadly unerring skill. Nevertheless, 

■ the pains of Hunger and Revenge once satisfied, his next care 

* was not Comfort but Decoration (Putz). Warmth he found 
' in the toils of the chase ; or amid dried leaves, in his hollow 
1 tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto : but for Decoration 
' he must have Clothes. Nay, among wild people, we find tat- 
' tooing and painting even prior to Clothes. The first spiritual 
' want of a barbarous man is Decoration, as indeed we still see 

* among the barbarous classes in civilised countries. 

1 Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer ; loftiest Se- 

* rene Highness ; nay thy own amber -locked, snow -and- rose- 

■ bloom Maiden, worthy to glide sylphlike almost on air, whom 

* thou lovest, worshippest as a divine Presence, which, indeed, 

* symbolically taken, she is, — has descended, like thyself, from 

* that same hair - mantled, flint - hurling Aboriginal Anthropo- 
' phagus ! Out of the eater cometh forth meat ; out of the 
1 strong cometh forth sweetness. What changes are wrought, 

* not by Time, yet in Time ! For not Mankind only, but all 

* that Mankind does or beholds, is in continual growth, re- 
' genesis and self-perfecting vitality. Cast forth thy Act, thy 

* Word, into the ever-living, ever-working Universe : it is a seed- 
1 grain that cannot die ; unnoticed today (says one), it will i>e 
1 found flourishing as a Banyan-grove (perhaps, alas, as a Hem- 
1 lock-forest !) after a thousand years. 

* He who first shortened the labour of Copyists by device of 
' Movable Types was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering 
' most Kings and Senates, and creating a whole new Demo- 
' cratic world : he had invented the Art of Printing. The first 

* ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and Charcoal drove Monk 



chap. V. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 27 

' Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling : what will the last do ? 
4 Achieve the final undisputed prostration of Force under 
' Thought, of Animal courage under Spiritual. A simple in- 

* vention it was in the old-world Grazier, — sick of lugging his 
1 slow Ox about the country till he got it bartered for corn or 

* oil, — to take a piece of Leather, and thereon scratch or stamp 

* the mere Figure of an Ox (or Penis) ; put it in his pocket, and 

* call it Pecunia, Money. Yet hereby did Barter grow Sale, the 

* Leather Money is now Golden and Paper, and all miracles 
1 have been out-miracled : for there are Rothschilds and English 
' National Debts ; and whoso has sixpence is sovereign (to the 
' length of sixpence) over all men ; commands cooks to feed 
4 him, philosophers to teach him, kings to mount guard over 
'him, — to the length of sixpence. — Clothes too, which began 

* in foolishest love of Ornament, what have they not become ! 

* Increased Security and pleasurable Heat soon followed : but 

* what of these ? Shame, divine Shame (Sckaam, Modesty), as 

* yet a stranger to the Anthropophagous bosom, arose there mys- 

* teriously under Clothes ; a mystic grove -encircled shrine for 
1 the Holy in man. Clothes gave us individuality, distinctions, 
4 social polity ; Clothes have made Men of us ; they are threat- 
1 ening to make Clothes-screens of us. 

' But, on the whole,' continues our eloquent Professor, * Man 
1 is a Tool-using Animal (Handthierendes Thier). Weak in him- 
' self, and of small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for 
' the flattest-soled, of some half-square foot, insecurely enough ; 
1 has to straddle out his legs, lest the very wind supplant him. 
1 Feeblest of bipeds ! Three quintals are a crushing load for 
4 him ; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft, like a waste 

* rag. Nevertheless he can use Tools, can devise Tools : with 

* these the granite mountain melts into light dust before him ; 
1 he kneads glowing iron, as if it were soft paste ; seas are his 
1 smooth highway, winds and fire his unwearying steeds. No- 
1 where do you find him without Tools ; without Tools he is 

* nothing, with Tools he is all.' 

Here may we not, for a moment, interrupt the stream of 
Oratory with a remark, that this Definition of the Tool-using 
Animal appears to us, of all that Animal-sort, considerably the 
precisest and best ? Man is called a Laughing Animal : but do 
not the apes also laugh, or attempt to do it ; and is the manli- 



28 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

est man the greatest and oftenest laugher ? Teufelsdrockh him- 
self, as we said, laughed only once. Still less do we make of 
that other French Definition of the Cooking Animal ; which, 
indeed, for rigorous scientific purposes, is as good as useless. 
Can a Tartar be said to cook, when he only readies his steak 
by riding on it ? Again, what Cookeiy does the Greenlander 
use, beyond stowing-up his whale-blubber, as a marmot, in the 
like case, might do ? Or how would Monsieur Ude prosper 
among those Orinocco Indians who, according to Humboldt, 
lodge in crow-nests, on the branches of trees ; and, for half the 
year, have no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole country being 
under water? But, on the other hand, show us the human 
being, of any period or climate, without his Tools : those very 
Caledonians, as we saw, had their Flint-ball, and Thong to it, 
such as no brute has or can have. 

1 Man is a Tool-using Animal,' concludes Teufelsdrockh in 
his abrupt way ; ' of which truth Clothes are but one example : 
' and surely if we consider the interval between the first wooden 
' Dibble fashioned by man, and those Liverpool Steam-carriages, 
1 or the British House of Commons, we shall note what pro- 
1 gress he has made. He digs up certain black stones from the 
' bosom of the earth, and says to them, Transport me and this 
1 luggage at the rate of five-and-thirty miles an hour; and they 
'do it : he collects, apparently by lot, six -hundred and fifty- 
1 eight miscellaneous individuals, and says to them, Make this 

* nation toil for us, bleed for us, hunger and sorrow and sin for 

* us j and they do it.' 



CHAPTER VI. 

APRONS. 

One of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Vol- 
ume is that on Aprons. What though stout old Gao, the Persian 
Blacksmith, ' whose Apron, now indeed hidden under jewels, 
' because raised in revolt which proved successful, is still the 
' royal standard of that country ;' what though John Knox's 
Daughter, 'who threatened Sovereign Majesty that she would 
' catch her husband's head in her Apron, rather than he should 
1 lie and be a bishop ;' what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, 



chap. vi. APRONS. 29 

with many other Apron worthies, — figure here ? An idle wire- 
drawing spirit, sometimes even a tone of levity, approaching to 
conventional satire, is too clearly discernible. What, for ex- 
ample, are we to make of such sentences as the following ? 

* Aprons are Defences ; against injury to cleanliness, to safety, 
' to modesty, sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of 
1 notched silk (as it were, the emblem and beatified ghost of an 
' Apron), which some highest-bred housewife, sitting at Niirn- 

* berg Workboxes and Toyboxes, has gracefully fastened on ; 

* to the thick-tanned hide, girt round him with thongs, wherein 

* the Builder builds, and at evening sticks his trowel ; or to 
' those jingling sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise half- 
' naked Vulcans hammer and smelt in their smelt-furnace, — is 
1 there not range enough in the fashion and uses of this Vest- 

* ment ? How much has been concealed, how much has been 
1 defended in Aprons ! Nay, rightly considered, what is your 

* whole Military and Police Establishment, charged at uncalcu- 
1 lated millions, but a huge scarlet-coloured, iron-fastened Apron, 
1 wherein Society works (uneasily enough) ; guarding itself from 

* some soil and stithy-sparks, in this Devil's-smithy (Teufels- 
1 schmiede) of a world ? But of all Aprons the most puzzling to 
1 me hitherto has been the Episcopal or Cassock. Wherein con- 
1 sists the usefulness of this Apron ? The Overseer (Eftiscopus) 
1 of Souls, I notice, has tucked-in the corner of it, as if his day's 
1 work were done: what does he shadow forth thereby?' &c. &c. 

Or again, has it often been the lot of our readers to read 
such stuff as we shall now quote ? 

( I consider those printed Paper Aprons, worn by the Pa- 

* risian Cooks, as a new vent, though a slight one, for Typo- 
' graphy ; therefore as an encouragement to modern Literature, 
1 and deserving of approval : nor is it without satisfaction that 

* I hear of a celebrated London Firm having in view to in- 
1 troduce the same fashion, with important extensions, in Eng- 

* land.' — We who are on the spot hear of no such thing ; and 
indeed have reason to be thankful that hitherto there are other 
vents for our Literature, exuberant as it is. — Teufelsdrockh 
continues : ' If such supply of printed Paper should rise so far 

* as to choke-up the highways and public thoroughfares, new 
1 means must of necessity be had recourse to. In a world ex- 
' isting by Industry, we grudge to employ fire as a destroying 



30 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

1 element, and not as a creating one. However, Heaven is ora- 
1 nipotent, and will find us an outlet. In the mean while, is it 
4 not beautiful to see five-million quintals of Rags picked annually 
1 from the Laystall ; and annually, after being macerated, hot- 
1 pressed, printed-on, and sold, — returned thither ; filling so many 
' hungry mouths by the way ? Thus is the Laystall, especially 
1 with its Rags or Clothes-rubbish, the grand Electric Battery, 
' and Fountain-of-motion, from which and to which the Social 
1 Activities (like vitreous and resinous Electricities) circulate, in 

* larger or smaller circles, through the mighty, billowy, storm- 
■ tost Chaos of Life, which they keep alive !'■ — Such passages 
fill us, who love the man, and partly esteem him, with a very 
mixed feeling. 

Farther down we meet with this : ' The Journalists are now 
' the true Kings and Clergy : henceforth Historians, unless they 
1 are fools, must write not of Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors 
1 and Hapsburgs ; but of Stamped Broad-sheet Dynasties, and 
' quite new successive Names, according as this or the other 

• Able Editor, or Combination of Able Editors, gains the world's 
1 ear. Of the British Newspaper Press, perhaps the most im- 
1 portant of all, and wonderful enough in its secret constitution 
1 and procedure, a valuable descriptive History already exists, 

1 in that language, under the title of Satan's Invisible World 
1 Displayed; which, however, by search in all the Weissnichtwo 
' Libraries, I have not yet succeeded in procuring {yermbchte 
4 nicht aufziitreiben)' 

Thus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus 
does Teufelsdrockh, wandering in regions where he had little 
business, confound the old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder 
with a new, spurious, imaginary Historian of the Brittische Jour- 
nalistikj and so stumble on perhaps the most egregious blunder 
in Modern Literature ! 



CHAPTER VII. 

MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 

Happier is our Professor, and more purely scientific and 
historic, when he reaches the Middle Ages in Europe, and down 
to the end of the Seventeenth Century ; the true era of extra- 



chap. vii. MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 31 

vagance in Costume. It is here that the Antiquary and Student 
of Modes comes upon his richest harvest. Fantastic garbs, beg- 
garing all fancy of a Teniers or a Callot, succeed each other, 
like monster devouring monster in a Dream. The whole too in 
brief authentic strokes, and touched not seldom with that breath 
of genius which makes even old raiment live. Indeed, so learned, 
precise, graphical, and everyway interesting have we found these 
Chapters, that it may be thrown-out as a pertinent question for 
parties concerned, Whether or not a good English Translation 
thereof might henceforth be profitably incorporated with Mr. 
Merrick's valuable Work On Ancient Armour ? Take, by way of 
example, the following sketch ; as authority for which Paulinus's 
Zeitkilrzende Lust (ii. 678) is, with seeming confidence, re- 
ferred to : 

' Did we behold the German fashionable dress of the Fif- 
4 teenth Century, we might smile ; as perhaps those bygone 
' Germans, were they to rise again, and see our haberdashery, 
' would cross themselves, and invoke the Virgin. But happily 
' no bygone German, or man, rises again ; thus the Present is 

* not needlessly trammelled with the Past ; and only grows out 
' of it, like a Tree, whose roots are not intertangled with its 

* branches, but lie peaceably underground. Nay it is very mourn- 
1 ful, yet not useless, to see and know, how the Greatest and 
1 Dearest, in a short while, would find his place quite filled-up 

* here, and no room for him ; the very Napoleon, the very Byron, 
' in some seven years, has become obsolete, and were now a 
' foreigner to his Europe. Thus is the Law of Progress secured ; 
1 and in Clothes, as in all other external things whatsoever, no 

* fashion will continue. 

' Of the military classes in those old times, whose buff-belts, 

* complicated chains and gorgets, huge churn-boots, and other 
1 riding and fighting gear have been bepainted in modern Ro- 
' mance, till the whole has acquired somewhat of a sign-post 
1 character, — I shall here say nothing : the civil and pacific 
' classes, less touched upon, are wonderful enough for us. 

1 Rich men, I find, have Teusinke' (a perhaps untranslate- 
able article) ; ' also a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells ; so 

* that when a man walks, it is with continual jingling. Some 
1 few, of musical turn, have a whole chime of bells (Glockenspiel) 

* fastened there ; which, especially in sudden whirls, and the 



32 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

' other accidents of walking, has a grateful effect. Observe too 
' how fond they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch intersections. 
' The male world wears peaked caps, an ell long, which hang 
' bobbing over the side (schief) : their shoes are peaked in front, 
' also to the length of an ell, and laced on the side with tags ; 
1 even the wooden shoes have their ell-long noses : some also 
■ clap bells on the peak. Further, according to my authority, 
1 the men have breeches without seat (phne Gesciss) : these they 
4 fasten peakwise to their shirts ; and the long round doublet 
1 must overlap them. 

' Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped out 
1 behind and before, so that back and breast are almost bare. 
1 Wives of quality, on the other hand, have train-gowns four or 

* five ells in length ; which trains there are boys to carry. Brave 

* Cleopatras, sailing in their silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for 
1 steersman ! Consider their welts, a handbreadth thick, which 
' waver round them by way of hem ; the long flood of silver but- 

* tons, or rather silver shells, from throat to shoe, wherewith 

* these same welt-gowns are buttoned. The maidens have bound 

* silver snoods about their hair, with gold spangles, and pendent 
1 flames (Flammen), that is, sparkling hair-drops : but of their 
1 mother's headgear who shall speak ? Neither in love of grace 
' is comfort forgotten. In winter weather you behold the whole 
1 fair creation (that can afford it) in long mantles, with skirts 

* wide below, and, for hem, not one but two sufficient hand- 

* broad welts; all ending atop in a thick well -starched Ruff, 
' some twenty inches broad : these are their Ruff-mantles (Kra- 
' genmantel). 

1 As yet among the womankind hoop-petticoats are not ; but 
1 the men have doublets of fustian, under which lie multiple ruffs 

* of cloth, pasted together with batter {niit Teig zusammen- 

* gekleisterf), which create protuberance enough. Thus do the 
' two sexes vie with each other in the art of Decoration ; and 

* as usual the stronger carries it.' 

Our Professor, whether he have humour himself or not, 
manifests a certain feeling of the Ludicrous, a sly observance 
of it, which, could emotion of any kind be confidently predi- 
cated of so still a man, we might call a real love. None of those 
bell-girdles, bushel-breeches, cornuted shoes, or other the like 
phenomena, of which the History of Dress offers so many, 



chap. vil. MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 33 

escape him : more especially the mischances, or striking adven- 
tures, incident to the wearers of such, are noticed with due 
fidelity. Sir Walter Raleigh's fine mantle, which he spread in 
the mud under Queen Elizabeth's feet, appears to provoke little 
enthusiasm in him ; he merely asks, Whether at that period the 
Maiden Queen 'was red-painted on the nose, and white-painted on 
1 the cheeks, as her tirewomen, when from spleen and wrinkles 
1 she would no longer look in any glass, were wont to serve her ?' 
We can answer that Sir Walter knew well what he was doing, 
and had the Maiden Queen been stuffed parchment dyed in 
verdigris, would have done the same. 

Thus too, treating of those enormous habiliments, that were 
not only slashed and galooned, but artificially swollen-out on the 
broader parts of the body, by introduction of Bran, — our Pro- 
fessor fails not to comment on that luckless Courtier, who hav- 
ing seated himself on a chair with some projecting nail on it, 
and therefrom rising, to pay his devoir on the entrance of Ma- 
jesty, instantaneously emitted several pecks of dry wheat-dust : 
and stood there diminished to a spindle, his galoons and slashes 
dangling sorrowful and flabby round him. Whereupon the Pro- 
fessor publishes this reflection : 

' By what strange chances do we live in History ? Erostratus 
\ by a torch ; Milo by a bullock ; Henry Darnley, an unfledged 
' booby and bustard, by his limbs ; most Kings and Queens by 
' being born under such and such a bed-tester ; Boileau Des- 
' preaux (according to Helvetius) by the peck of a turkey; and 

• this ill-starred individual by a rent in his breeches, — for no 
1 Memoirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits him. Vain was the 

• prayer of Themistocles for a talent of Forgetting : my Friends, 
' yield cheerfully to Destiny, and read since it is written.' — Has 
Teufelsdrockh to be put in mind that, nearly related to the im- 
possible talent of Forgetting, stands that talent of Silence, which 
even travelling Englishmen manifest ? 

'The simplest costume,' observes our Professor, 'which I 
' anywhere find alluded to in History, is that used as regimental, 
' by Bolivar's Cavalry, in the late Columbian wars. A square 
' Blanket, twelve feet in diagonal, is provided (some were wont 

• to cut-off the corners, and make it circular) : in the centre a 
1 slit is effected eighteen inches long ; through this the mother- 
' naked Trooper introduces his head and neck ; and so rides 

D 



34 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

* shielded from all weather, and in battle from many strokes 
' (for he rolls it about his left arm) ; and not only dressed, but 
' harnessed and draperied.' 

With which picture of a State of Nature, affecting by its 
singularity, and Old-Roman contempt of the superfluous, we 
shall quit this part of our subject. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 

If in the Descriptive-Historical portion of this Volume, Teu- 
felsdrockh, discussing merely the Werden (Origin and successive 
Improvement) of Clothes, has astonished many a reader, much 
more will he in the Speculative -Philosophical portion, which 
treats of their V/irken, or Influences. It is here that the pre- 
sent Editor first feels the pressure of his task; for here properly 
the higher and new Philosophy of Clothes commences : an un- 
tried, almost inconceivable region, or chaos ; in venturing upon 
which, how difficult, yet how unspeakably important is it to know 
what course, of survey and conquest, is the true one ; where the 
footing is firm substance and will bear us, where it is hollow, 01 
mere cloud, and may engulf us ! Teufelsdrockh undertakes no 
less than to expound the moral, political, even religious Influ- 
ences of Clothes ; he undertakes to make manifest, in its thou- 
sandfold bearings, this grand Proposition, that Man's earthly 
interests 'are all hooked and buttoned together, and held up, 
1 by Clothes.' He says in so many words, ' Society is founded 
1 upon Cloth ;' and again, ' Society sails through the Infinitude 
1 on Cloth, as en a Faust's Mantle, or rather like the Sheet of 
' clean and unclean beasts in the Apostle's Dream ; and with- 
1 out such Sheet or Mantle, would sink to endless depths, or 
1 mount to inane limboes, and in either case be no more.' 

By what chains, or indeed infinitely complected tissues, of 
Meditation this grand Theorem is here unfolded, and innumer- 
able practical Corollaries are drawn therefrom, it were perhaps 
a mad ambition to attempt exhibiting. Our Professor's method 
is not, in any case, that of common school Logic, where the 
truths all stand in a row, each holding by the skirts of the other; 



chap. viii. THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 35 

but at best that of practical Reason, proceeding by large In- 
tuition over whole systematic groups and kingdoms ; whereby, 
we might say, a noble complexity, almost like that of Nature, 
reigns in his Philosophy, or spiritual Picture of Nature : a mighty 
maze, yet, as faith whispers, not without a plan. Nay we com- 
plained above, that a certain ignoble complexity, what we must 
call mere confusion, was also discernible. Often, also, we have 
to exclaim : Would to Heaven those same Biographical Docu- 
ments were come ! For it seems as if the demonstration lay 
much in the Author's individuality ; as if it were not Argument 
that had taught him, but Experience. At present it is only in 
local glimpses, and by significant fragments, picked often at wide- 
enough intervals from the original Volume, and carefully collated, 
that we can hope to impart some outline or foreshadow of this 
Doctrine. Readers of any intelligence are once more invited to 
favour us with their most concentrated attention : let these, after 
intense consideration, and not till then, pronounce, Whether on 
the utmost verge of our actual horizon there is not a looming as 
of Land ; a promise of new Fortunate Islands, perhaps whole 
undiscovered Americas, for such as have canvas to sail thither? — 
As exordium to the whole, stand here the following long citation : 
'With men of a speculative turn,' writes Teufelsdrockh, 
1 there come seasons, meditative, sweet, yet awful hours, when 
' in wond er and fear you ask yourself that unanswerable ques- 
1 tion : Who am I j the thing that can say " I" {das Wesen das 
1 sick Ich nmnt) ? The world, with its loud trafficking, retires 
' into the distance ; and, through the paper-hangings, and stone- 
' walls, and thick-plied tissues of Commerce and Polity, and all 
1 the living and lifeless integuments (of Society and a Body), 

* wherewith your Existence sits surrounded, — the sight reaches 
1 forth into the void Deep, and you are alone with the Universe, 
4 and silently commune with it, as one mysterious Presence with 
1 another. 

'Who am I ; what is this Me ? A Voice, a Motion, an Ap- 
1 pearance ; — some embodied, visualised Idea in the Eternal 

* Mind ? Cogito y ergo sum. Alas, poor Cogitator, this takes us 
1 but a little way. Sure enough, I am ; and lately was not : but 
1 Whence ? How ? Whereto ? The answer lies around, written 
' in all colours and motions, uttered in all tones of jubilee and 
1 wail, in thousand-figured, thousand-voiced, harmonious Nature : 



36 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

' but where is the cunning eye and ear to whom that God-writ- 
1 ten Apocalypse will yield articulate meaning ? We sit as in a 
1 boundless Phantasmagoria and Dream-grotto ; boundless, for 
1 the faintest star, the remotest century, lies not even nearer the 
1 verge thereof: sounds and many-coloured visions flit round our 
1 sense ; but Him, the Unslumbering, whose work both Dream 

* and Dreamer are, we see not ; except in rare half-waking mo- 
' ments, suspect not. Creation, says one, lies before us, like a 
4 glorious Rainbow ; but the Sun that made it lies behind us, hid- 
1 den from us. Then, in that strange Dream, how we clutch at 

* shadows as if they were substances ; and sleep deepest while 
4 fancying ourselves most awake ! Which of your Philosophical 

* Systems is other than a dream-theorem ; a net quotient, con- 
1 fidently given out, where divisor and dividend are both un- 
4 known ? What are all your national Wars, with their Moscow 
1 Retreats, and sanguinary hate-filled Revolutions, but the Som- 
1 nambulism of uneasy Sleepers ? This Dreaming, this Somnam- 
1 bulism is what we on Earth call Life ; wherein the most indeed 
1 undoubtingly wander, as if they knew right hand from left ; 

* yet they only are wise who know that they know nothing. 

1 Pity that all Metaphysics had hitherto proved so inexpres- 
' sibly unproductive ! The secret of Man's Being is still like the 
4 Sphinx's secret : a riddle that he cannot rede ; and for ignor- 
1 ance of which he suffers death, the worst death, a spiritual. 
4 What are your Axioms, and Categories, and Systems, and 
4 Aphorisms ? Words, words. High Air-castles are cunningly 

* built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good Logic- 
1 mortar ; wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge. 
4 The whole is greater than the part : how exceedingly true ! 
1 Nature abhors a vacuum : how exceedingly false and calum- 
1 nious ! Again, Nothing can act but where it is : with all my 
' heart ; only, where is it ? Be not the slave of Words : is not 
4 the Distant, the Dead, while I love it, and long for it, and 
4 mourn for it, Here, in the genuine sense, as truly as the floor 
4 I stand on ? But that same Where, with its brother When, 
4 are from the first the master-colours of our Dream-grotto ; say 
4 rather, the Canvas (the warp and woof thereof) whereon all 
4 our Dreams and Life-visions are painted. Nevertheless, has 
4 not a deeper meditation taught certain of every climate and 
4 age, that the Where and When, so mysteriously inseparable 



chap. viii. THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 37 

1 from all our thoughts, are but superficial terrestrial adhesions 
1 to thought ; that the Seer may discern them where they mount 
' up out of the celestial Everywhere and Forever : have not 
1 all nations conceived their God as Omnipresent and Eternal ; 
' as existing in a universal Here, an everlasting Now? Think 
1 well, thou too wilt find that Space is but a mode of our human 

* Sense, so likewise Time ; there is no Space and no Time : We 
' are — we know not what ; — light-sparkles floating in the aether 
1 01 Deity ! 

' So that this so solid-seeming World, after all, were but an 
1 air-image, our Me the only reality : and Nature, with its thou- 
1 sandfold production and destruction, but the reflex of our own 
' inward Force, the "phantasy of our Dream;" or what the Earth- 
' Spirit in Faust names it, the living visible Garment of God: 

* " In Being's floods, in Action's storm, 
I walk and work, above, beneath, 
Work and weave in endless motion ! 

Birth and Death, 

An infinite ocean ; 

A seizing and giving 

The fire of Living : 
'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, 
And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by." 

■ Of twenty millions that have read and spouted this thunder- 

* speech of the Erdgeist, are there yet twenty units of us that 

* have learned the meaning thereof ? 

1 It was in some such mood, when wearied and fordone with 
« these high speculations, that I first came upon the question of 
' Clothes. Strange enough, it strikes me, is this same fact of 
1 there being Tailors and Tailored. The Horse I ride has his 
1 own whole fell : strip him of the girths and flaps and extrane- 
' ous tags I have fastened round him, and the noble creature is 
1 his own sempster and weaver and spinner ; nay his own boot- 
' maker, jeweller, and man-milliner; he bounds free through the 
1 valleys, with a perennial rainproof court-suit on his body ; 
1 wherein warmth and easiness of fit have reached perfection ; 
1 nay, the graces also have been considered, and frills and fringes, 
1 with gay variety of colour, featly appended, and ever in the 
' right place, are not wanting. While I — good Heaven! — have 
1 thatched myself over with the dead fleeces of sheep, the barl: 



38 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

' of vegetables, the entrails of worms, the hides of oxen or seals, 
1 the felt of furred beasts ; and walk abroad a moving Rag-screen, 

* overheaped with shreds and tatters raked from the Charnel- 
1 house of Nature, where they would have rotted, to rot on me 

* more slowly ! Day after day, I must thatch myself anew ; day 
1 after day, this despicable thatch must lose some film of its 
' thickness ; some film of it, frayed away by tear and wear, must 
« be brushed-off into the Ashpit, into the Laystall ; till by de- 
1 grees the whole has been brushed thither, and I, the dust- 
1 making, patent Rag-grinder, get new material to grind down. 
1 O subter-brutish ! vile ! most vile ! For have not I too a com- 
' pact all-enclosing Skin, whiter or dingier ? Am I a botched 

* mass of tailors' and cobblers' shreds, then ; or a tightly-articu- 
1 lated, homogeneous little Figure, automatic, nay alive ? 

' Strange enough how creatures of the human-kind shut their 
' eyes to plainest facts ; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion and 
1 Stupidity, live at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. 
1 But indeed man is, and was always, a blockhead and dullard ; 
1 much readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider. 

* Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his absolute lawgiver ; 
1 mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him by the nose ; thus let 
' but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World happen 
1 twice, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy, or not- 
' iceable. Perhaps not once in a lifetime does it occur to your 
' ordinary biped, of any country or generation, be he gold-man- 
1 tied Prince or russet-jerkined Peasant, that his Vestments and 
1 his Self are not one and indivisible; that he is naked, without 
1 vestments, till he buy or steal such, and by forethought sew and 
1 button them. 

' For my own part, these considerations, of our Clothes-thatch, 
1 and how, reaching inwards even to our heart of hearts, it tailor- 
1 ises and demoralises us, fill me with a certain horror at myself 
1 and mankind ; almost as one feels at those Dutch Cows, which, 
1 during the wet season, you see grazing deliberately with jackets 
1 and petticoats (of striped sacking), in the meadows of Gouda. 
1 Nevertheless there is something great in the moment when a 

* man first strips himself of adventitious wrappages ; and sees 
1 indeed that he is naked, and, as Swift has it, "a forked strad- 
' dling animal with bandy legs ;" yet also a Spirit, and unutter- 
1 able Mystery of Mysteries.' 



CHAP. ix. ADAMITISM. 39 



CHAPTER IX. 

ADAMITISM. 

Let no courteous reader take offence at the opinions broached 
in the conclusion of the last Chapter. The Editor himself, on first 
glancing over that singular passage, was inclined to exclaim : 
What, have we got not only a Sansculottist, but an enemy to 
Clothes in the abstract? Anew Adamite, in this century, which 
flatters itself that it is the Nineteenth, and destru ctive both to 
Superstition and Enthusiasm ? 

Consider, thou foolish Teufelsdrockh, what beneh "s unspeak- 
able all ages and sexes derive from Clothes. For example, when 
thou thyself, a watery, pulpy, slobbery freshman and n^w-comer 
in this Planet, sattest muling and puking in thy nurse ^ arms ; 
sucking thy coral, and looking forth into the world in the. blank- 
est manner, what hadst thou been without thy blanket', and 
bibs, and other nameless hulls ? A terror to thyself and -nan- 
kind ! Or hast thou forgotten the day when thou first receivedst 
breeches, and thy long clothes became short ? The village where 
thou livedst was all apprised of the fact ; and neighbour after 
neighbour kissed thy pudding-cheek, and gave thee, as handsel, 
silver or copper coins, on that the first gala-day of thy exist- 
ence. Again, wert not thou, at one period of life, a Buck, or 
Blood, or Macaroni, or Incroyable, or Dandy, or by whatever 
name, according to year and place, such phenomenon is distin- 
guished ? In that one word lie included mysterious volumes. 
Nay, now when the reign of folly is over, or altered, and thy 
clothes are not for triumph but for defence, hast thou always 
worn them perforce, and as a consequence of Man's Fall ; never 
rejoiced in them as in a warm movable House, a Body round 
thy Body, wherein that strange Thee of thine sat snug, detying 
all variations of Climate ? Girt with thick double-milled ker- 
seys ; half-buried under shawls and broadbrims, and overalls 
and mud-boots, thy very fingers cased in doeskin and mittens, 
thou hast bestrode that ' Horse I ride ;' and, though it were in 
wild winter, dashed through the world, glorying in it as if thou 
wert its lord. In vain did the sleet beat round thy temples ; it 
lighted only on thy impenetrable, felted or woven, case of wool. 



40 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

In vain did the winds howl, — forests sounding and creaking, 
deep calling unto deep, — and the storms heap themselves toge- 
ther into one huge Arctic whirlpool : thou rlewest through the 
middle thereof, striking fire from the highway ; wild music 
• hummed in thy ears, thou too wert as a ' sailor of the air ;' the 
wreck of matter and the crash of worlds was thy element and 
propitiously wafting tide. Without Clothes, without bit or sad- 
dle, what hadst thou been ; what had thy fleet quadruped been? 
— Nature is good, but she is not the best : here truly was the 
victoiy of Art over Nature. A thunderbolt indeed might have 
pierced thee ; all short of this thou couldst defy. 

Or, cries the courteous reader, has your Teufelsdrockh for- 
gotten what he said lately about 'Aboriginal Savages,' and their 
' condition miserable indeed' ? Would he have all this unsaid ; 
and us betake ourselves again to the 'matted cloak,' and go 
sheeted in a ' thick natural fell' ? 

Nowise, courteous reader ! The Professor knows full well 
what he is saying ; and both thou and we, in our haste, do him 
wrong. If Clothes, in these times, ' so tailorise and demoralise 
us,' have they no redeeming value ; can they not be altered to 
serve better ; must they of necessity be thrown to the dogs ? The 
truth is, Teufelsdrockh, though a Sansculottist, is no Adamite ; 
and much perhaps as he might wish to go forth before this 
degenerate age 'as a Sign,' would nowise wish to do it, as 
those old Adamites did, in a state of Nakedness. The utility of 
Clothes is altogether apparent to him : nay perhaps he has an 
insight into their more recondite, and almost mystic qualities, 
what we might call the omnipotent virtue of Clothes, such as 
was never before vouchsafed to any man. For example : 

' You see two individuals,' he writes, ' one dressed in fine 

■ Red, the other in coarse threadbare Blue : Red says to Blue, 
' " Be hanged and anatomised ;" Blue hears with a shudder, 

■ and (O wonder of wonders !) marches sorrowfully to the gal- 
4 lows ; is there noosed-up, vibrates his hour, and the surgeons 
' dissect him, and fit his bones into a skeleton for medical pur- 
' poses. How is this ; or what make ye of your Nothing can 
' act but where it is ? Red has no physical hold of Blue, no 
' clutch of him, is nowise in contact with him : neither are those 

• ministering Sheriffs and Lord-Lieutenants and Hangmen and 

• Tipstaves so related to commanding Red, that he can tug them 



chap. ix. ADAMITISM. 41 

1 hither and thither ; but each stands distinct within his own 
1 skin. Nevertheless, as it is spoken, so is it done : the articu- 
1 lated Word sets all hands in Action ; and Rope and Improved- 
1 drop perform their work. 

1 Thinking reader, the reason seems to me twofold : First, 

* that Man is a Spirit, and bound by invisible bonds to All 

* Men; secondly, that he wears Clothes, which are the visible 

* emblems of that fact. Has not your Red hanging-individual 

* a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins, and a plush-gown ; whereby all 
1 mortals know that he is a Judge ? — Society, which the more I 
1 think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon Cloth. 

* Often in my atrabiliar moods, when I read of pompous 
1 ceremonials, Frankfort Coronations, Royal Drawing-rooms, 

* Levees, Couchees ; and how the ushers and macers and pur- 
1 suivants are all in waiting ; how Duke this is presented by 
1 Archduke that, and Colonel A by General B, and innumerable 
1 Bishops, Admirals, and miscellaneous Functionaries, are ad- 

* vancing gallantly to the Anointed Presence , and I strive, in 
1 my remote privacy, to form a clear picture of that solemnity, 
1 — on a sudden, as by some enchanter's wand, the — shall I 
1 speak it ? — the Clothes fly-off the whole dramatic corps ; and 

* Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, Anointed Presence itself, 
1 every mother's son of them, stand straddling there, not a shirt 
' on them ; and I know not whether to laugh or weep. This 
1 physical or psychical infirmity, in which perhaps I am not sin- 
' gular, I have, after hesitation, thought right to publish, for the 
' solace of those afflicted with the like.' 

Would to Heaven, say we, thou hadst thought right to keep 
it secret ! Who is there now that can read the five columns of 
Presentations in his Morning Newspaper without a shudder ? 
Hypochondriac men, and all men are to a certain extent hypo- 
chondriac, should be more gently treated. With what readiness 
our fancy, in this shattered state of the nerves, follows out the 
consequences which Teufelsdrockh, with a devilish coolness, goes 
on to draw : 

1 What would Majesty do, could such an accident befall in 
' reality ; should the buttons all simultaneously start, and the 
' solid wool evaporate, in very Deed, as here in Dream ? Ach 

* Gott ! How each skulks into the nearest hiding-place ; their 
1 high State Tragedy (Haapt- und Staats- Action) becomes a 



42 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

4 Pickleherring- Farce to weep at, which is the worst kind of 
1 Farce ; the tables (according to Horace), and with them, the 
' whole fabric of Government, Legislation, Property, Police, and 

* Civilised Society, are dissolved, in wails and howls.' 

Lives the man that can figure a naked Duke of Windlestraw 
addressing a naked House of Lords ? Imagination, choked as 
in mephitic air, recoils on itself, and will not forward w r ith the 
picture. The Woolsack, the Ministerial, the Opposition Benches 
— infandutn! infandum! And yet why is the thing impossible? 
Was not every soul, or rather every body, of these Guardians of 
our Liberties, naked, or nearly so, last night ; ' a forked Radish 
with a head fantastically carved' ? And why might he not, did 
our stern fate so order it, walk out to St. Stephen's, as well as into 
bed, in that no-fashion ; and there, with other similar Radishes, 
hold a Bed of Justice ? ' Solace of those afflicted with the like!' 
Unhappy Teufelsdrockh, had man ever such a ' physical or 
psychical infirmity' before? And now how many, perhaps, may 
thy unparalleled confession (which we, even to the sounder 
British world, and goaded-on by Critical and Biographical duty, 
grudge to reimpart) incurably infect therewith ! Art thou the 
malignest of Sansculottists, or only the maddest ? 

' It will remain to be examined,' adds the inexorable Teu- 
felsdrockh, ' in how far the Scarecrow, as a Clothed Person, 

* is not also entitled to benefit of clergy, and English trial by 

* jury: nay perhaps, considering his high function (for is not he 
1 too a Defender of Property, and Sovereign armed with the 
1 terrors of the Law ?), to a certain royal Immunity and Invio- 
1 lability ; which, however, misers and the meaner class of per- 
1 sons are not always voluntarily disposed to grant him.' * * 

* * 'O my Friends, we are (in Yorick Sterne's words) 
'but as " turkeys driven, with a stick and red clout, to the 
' market :" or if some drivers, as they do in Norfolk, take a 

* dried bladder and put peas in it, the rattle thereof terrifies the 

* boldest r 



chap. x. PURE REASON. 43 



CHAPTER X. 

PURE REASON. 

It must now be apparent enough that our Professor, as alcove 
hinted, is a speculative Radical, and of the very darkest tinge ; 
acknowledging, for most part, in the solemnities and parapher- 
nalia of civilised Life, which we make so much of, nothing but 
so many Cloth-rags, turkey-poles, and ' bladders with dried? 
peas.' To linger among such speculations, longer than mere 
Science requires, a discerning public can have no wish. For 
our purposes the simple fact that such a Naked World r is possible, 
nay actually exists (under the Clothed one), will be sufficient. 
Much, therefore, we omit about ' Kings wrestling naked on the 
' green with Carmen, ' and the Kings being thrown : ' dissect them 

* with scalpels,' says Teufelsdrockh ; 'the same viscera, tissues, 
' livers, lights, and other life-tackle, are there : examine their 
1 spiritual mechanism ; the same great Need, great Greed, and 
' little Faculty ; nay ten to one but the Carman, who under- 
1 stands draught-cattle, the rimming of wheels, something of the 
1 laws of unstable and stable equilibrium, with other branches of 
' wagon-science, and has actually put forth his hand and operated 
' on Nature, is the more cunningly gifted of the two. Whence, 

* then, their so unspeakable difference? From Clothes.' Much 
also we shall omit about confusion of Ranks, and Joan and My 
Lady, and how it would be everywhere 'Hail fellow well met,' 
and Chaos were come again : all which to any one that has 
once fairly pictured-out the grand mother-idea, Society in a state 
of Nakedness, will spontaneously suggest itself. Should some 
sceptical individual still entertain doubts whether in a world 
without Clothes, the smallest Politeness, Polity, or even Police, 
could exist, let him turn to the original Volume, and view there 
the boundless Serbonian Bog of Sansculottism, stretching sour 
and pestilential : over which we have lightly flown ; where not 
only whole armies but whole nations might sink ! If indeed the 
following argument, in its brief riveting emphasis, be not of it- 
self incontrovertible and final : 

* Are we Opossums ; have we natural Pouches, like the Kan- 
1 garoo ? Or how, without Clothes, could we possess the master- 



44 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

' organ, soul's seat, and true pineal gland of the Body Social : 
4 I mean, a Purse ?' 

Nevertheless it is impossible to hate Professor Teufels- 
drockh ; at worst, one knows not whether to hate or to love 
him. For though, in looking at the fair tapestry of human Life, 
with its royal and even sacred figures, he dwells not on the ob- 
verse alone, but here chiefly on the reverse ; and indeed turns 
out the rough seams, tatters, and manifold thrums of that un- 
sightly wrong-side, with an almost diabolic patience and indif- 
ference, which must have sunk him in the estimation of most 
readers, — there is that within which unspeakably distinguishes 
him from ail other past and present Sansculottists. The grand 
unparalleled peculiarity of Teufelsdrockh is, that with all this 
Descendentalism, he combines a Transcendentalism, no less 
superlative ; whereby if on the one hand he degrade man below 
most animals, except those jacketed Gouda Cows, he, on the 
other, exalts him beyond the visible Heavens, almost to an 
equality with the Gods. 

'To the eye of vulgar Logic,' says he, 'what is man? An 
1 omnivorous Biped that wears Breeches. To the eye of Pure 
1 Reason what is he ? A Soul, a Spirit, and divine Apparition. 
' Round his mysterious Me, there lies, under all those wool-rags, 
• a Garment of Flesh (or of Senses), contextured in the Loom 
1 of Heaven ; whereby he is revealed to his like, and dwells 
1 with them in Union and Division ; and sees and fashions for 
' himself a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces, and long Thou- 
4 sands of Years. Deep-hidden is he under that strange Gar- 
' ment ; amid Sounds and Colours and Forms, as it were, 
' swathed-in, and inextricably over-shrouded : yet it is sky- 
4 woven, and worthy of a God. Stands he not thereby in the 
1 centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities? He feels; 
1 ppwer has been given him to know, to believe ; nay does 
4 not the spirit of Love, free in its celestial primeval bright- 
4 ness, even here, though but for moments, look through? Well 
' said Saint Chrysostom, with his lips of gold, <4 the true She- 
1 kinah is Man :" where else is the God's-Presence mani- 
' fested not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as in our 
1 fellow-man ?' 

In such passages, unhappily too rare, the high Platonic 
Mysticism of our Author, which is perhaps the fundamental 



chap. x. PURE REASON. 45 

element of his nature, bursts forth, as it were, in full flood : and, 
through all the vapour and tarnish of what is often so perverse, 
so mean in his exterior and environment, we seem to look into 
a whole inward Sea of Light and Love; — though, alas, the 
grim coppery clouds soon roll together again, and hide it from 
view. 

Such tendency to Mysticism is everywhere traceable in this 
man ; and indeed, to attentive readers, must have been long 
ago apparent. Nothing that he sees but has more than a com- 
mon meaning, but has two meanings : thus, if in the highest 
Imperial Sceptre and Charlemagne -Mantle, as well as in the 
poorest Ox -goad and Gipsy - Blanket, he finds Prose, Decay, 
Contemptibility ; there is in each sort Poetry also, and a re- 
verend Worth. For Matter, were it never so despicable, is 
Spirit, the manifestation of Spirit : were it never so honourable, 
can it be more ? The thing Visible, nay the thing Imagined, 
the thing in any way conceived as Visible, what is it but a 
Garment, a Clothing of the higher, celestial Invisible, 'un- 
imaginable, formless, dark with excess of bright' ? Under which 
point of view the following passage, so strange in purport, so 
strange in phrase, seems characteristic enough : 

'The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes, 
' or even with armed eyesight, till they become transparent. 
' " The Philosopher," says the wisest of this age, "must station 
' himself in the middle :" how true ! The Philosopher is he to 
4 whom the Highest has descended, and the Lowest has mounted 
' up ; who is the equal and kindly brother of all. 

' Shall we tremble before clothwebs and cobwebs, whether 
' woven in Arkwright looms, or by the silent Arachnes that 
' weave unrestingly in our imagination ? Or, on the other 
' hand, what is there that we cannot love ; since all was created 
' by God ? 

' Happy he who can look through the Clothes of a Man (the 
' woollen, and fleshly, and official Bank-paper and State-paper 
' Clothes) into the Man himself ; and discern, it may be, in this 
' or the other Dread Potentate, a more or less incompetent Di- 
' gestive-apparatus ; yet also an inscrutable venerable Mystery, 
4 in the meanest Tinker that sees with eyes !' 

For the rest, as is natural to a man of this kind, he deals 
much in the feeling of Wonder ; insists on the necessity and 



46 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

high worth of universal Wonder ; which he holds to be the only- 
reasonable temper for the denizen of so singular a Planet as 
ours. 'Wonder,' says he, 'is the basis of Worship : the reign 
6 of wonder is perennial, indestructible in Man ; only at certain 
' stages (as the present), it is, for some short season, a reign in 
' partibtis infidelium? That progress of Science, which is to 
destroy Wonder, and in its stead substitute Mensuration and 
Numeration, finds small favour with Teufelsdrockh, much as he 
otherwise venerates these two latter processes. 

'Shall your Science,' exclaims he, 'proceed in the small 
■ chink -lighted, or even oil -lighted, underground workshop of 
' Logic alone ; and man's mind become an Arithmetical Mill, 
' whereof Memory is the Hopper, and mere Tables of Sines and 
' Tangents, Codification, and Treatises of what you call Poli- 
' tical Economy, are the Meal ? And what is that Science, which 
' the scientific head alone, were it screwed off, and (like the 
' Doctor's in the Arabian Tale) set in a basin to keep it alive, 
' could prosecute without shadow of a heart, — but one other of 
' the mechanical and menial handicrafts, for which the Scien- 
4 tific Head (having a Soul in it) is too noble an organ ? I 
' mean that Thought without Reverence is barren, perhaps poi- 
' sonous ; at best, dies like cookery with the day that called it 
' forth ; does not live, like sowing, in successive tilths and 
' wider-spreading harvests, bringing food and plenteous increase 
' to all Time.' 

In such wise does Teufelsdrockh deal hits, harder or softer, 
according to ability ; yet ever, as we would fain persuade our- 
selves, with charitable intent. Above all, that class of ' Logic- 
' choppers, and treble-pipe Scoffers, and professed Enemies to 
' Wonder ; who, in these days, so numerously patrol as night- 
1 constables about the Mechanics' Institute of Science, and 

* cackle, like true Old-Roman geese and goslings round their 

* Capitol, on any alarm, or on none ; nay who often, as illumi- 
' nated Sceptics, walk abroad into peaceable society, in full day- 
' light, with rattle and lantern, and insist on guiding you and 
1 guarding you therewith, though the Sun is shining, and the 

* street populous with mere justice-loving men :' that whole class 
is inexpressibly wearisome to him. Hear with what uncommon 
animation he perorates : 

' The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually 



chap. xi. PROSPECTIVE. 47 

fonder (and worship), were he President of innumerable-Royal 
' Societies, and carried the whole Mecanique Celeste and He- 
1 gel's Philosophy ', and the epitome of all Laboratories and Ob- 
' servatories with their results, in his single head, — is but a Pair 
1 of Spectacles behind which there is no Eye. Let those who 
1 have Eyes look through him, then he may be useful. 

' Thou wilt have no Mystery and Mysticism ; wilt walk 
' through thy world by the sunshine of what thou callest Truth, 

* or even by the hand-lamp of what I call Attorney-Logic ; and 
' " explain" all, " account" for all, or believe nothing of it ? Nay, 
1 thou wilt attempt laughter ; whoso recognises the unfathom- 
i able, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is everywhere 
' under our feet and among our hands ; to whom the Universe 
1 is an Oracle and Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattle- 

* stall, — he shall be a delirious Mystic ; to him thou, with sniff- 
' ing charity, wilt protrusively proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, 
■ as one injured, when he kicks his foot through it ? — Armer 

* Teufel! Doth not thy cow calve, doth not thy bull gender? 
' Thou thyself, wert thou not born, wilt thou not die? "Ex- 

* plain" me all this, or do one of two things : Retire into private 
' places with thy foolish cackle ; or, what were better, give it 
1 up, and weep, not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's 
1 world all disembellished and prosaic, but that thou hitherto 
' art a Dilettante and sandblind Pedant.' 



CHAPTER XI. 

PROSPECTIVE. 

The Philosophy of Clothes is now to all readers, as we pre- 
dicted it would do, unfolding itself into new boundless expan- 
sions, of a cloudcapt, almost chimerical aspect, yet not without 
azure loomings in the far distance, and streaks as of an Elysian 
brightness ; the highly questionable purport and promise of 
which it is becoming more and more important for us to ascer- 
tain. Is that a real Elysian brightness, cries many a timid way- 
farer, or the reflex of Pandemonian lava? Is it of a truth lead- 
ing us into beatific Asphodel meadows, or the yellow-burning 
marl of a Hell-on-Earth ? 



43 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

Our Professor, like other Mystics, whether delirious or in- 
spired, gives an Editor enough to do. Ever higher and dizzier 
are the heights he leads us to ; more piercing, all-comprehend- 
ing, all-confounding are his views and glances. For example, 
this of Nature being not an Aggregate but a Whole : 

'Well sang the Hebrew Psalmist : " If I take the wings of 
1 the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the universe, 
' God is there." Thou thyself, O cultivated reader, who too 
' probably art no Psalmist, but a Prosaist, knowing God only 
1 by tradition, knowest thou any corner of the world where at 
1 least Force is not ? The drop which thou shakest from thy 
1 wet hand, rests not where it falls, but tomorrow thou flndest 

■ it swept away ; already on the wings of the Northwind, it is 
1 nearing the Tropic of Cancer. How came it to evaporate, and 

* not lie motionless ? Thinkest thou there is aught motionless ; 
' without Force, and utterly dead ? 

1 As I rode through the Schwarzwald, I said to myself: That 
1 little fire which glows star-like across the dark-growing (nac/i- 

* tende) moor, where the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and 
' thou hopest to replace thy lost horse-shoe, — is it a detached, 
1 separated speck, cut-off from the whole Universe ; or indis- 
1 solubly joined to the whole ? Thou fool, that smithy-fire was 
1 (primarily) kindled at the Sun ; is fed by air that circulates 
' from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dogstar ; therein, 
1 with Iron Force, and Coal Force, and the far stranger Force 

■ of Man, are cunning affinities and battles and victories of Force 
' brought about ; it is a little ganglion, or nervous centre, in the 
' great vital system of Immensity. Call it, if thou wilt, an un- 
1 conscious Altar, kindled on the bosom of the All ; whose iron 
1 sacrifice, whose iron smoke and influence reach quite through 
' the All ; whose dingy Priest, not by word, yet by brain and 

* sinew, preaches forth the mystery of Force ; nay preaches forth 
1 (exoterically enough) one little textlet from the Gospel of Free- 

* dom, the Gospel of Man's Force, commanding, and one day to 

■ be all-commanding. 

' Detached, separated ! I say there is no such separation : 
1 nothing hitherto was ever stranded, cast aside ; but all, were it 
1 only a withered leaf, works together with all ; is borne forward 

* on the bottomless, shoreless flood of Action, and lives through 
4 perpetual metamorphoses. The withered leaf is not dead and 



chap. xr. PROSPECTIVE. 49 

* lost, there are Forces in it and around it, though working in >-- 
'inverse order; else how could it rot? Despise not the rag from 

1 which man makes Paper, or the litter from which the earth 
' makes Corn. Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant ; 
' all objects are as windows, through which the philosophic eye 

* looks into Infinitude itself.' 

Again, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald Smithy -Altar, 
what vacant, high-sailing air-ships are these, and whither will 
they sail with us ? 

' All visible things are emblems ; what thou seest is not there 
1 on its own account ; strictly taken, is not there at all : Matter / 
1 exists only spiritually, and to represent some Idea, and body 

* it forth. Hence Clothes, as despicable as we think them, are 
1 so unspeakably significant. Clothes, from the King's mantle 
' downwards, are emblematic, not of want only, but of a manifold 
' cunning Victory over Want. On the other hand, all Emblem- 

* atic things are properly Clothes, thought-woven or hand-woven : 

* must not the Imagination weave Garments, visible Bodies, 
' wherein the else invisible creations and inspirations of our 
' Reason are, like Spirits, revealed, and first become all-powerful ; 
« — the rather if, as we often see, the Hand too aid her, and (by 
' wool Clothes or otherwise) reveal such even to the outward eye? 

' Men are properly said to be clothed with Authority, clothed 
1 with Beauty, with Curses, and the like. Nay, if you consider it, 
i what is Man himself, and his whole terrestrial Life, but an Em- 
1 blem ; a Clothing or visible Garment for that divine Me of his, 
' cast hither, like a light-particle, down from Heaven? Thus is 
/ he said also to be clothed with a Body. 

' Language is called the Garment of Thought : however, it 
' should rather be, Language is the Flesh-Garment, the Body, 
' of Thought. I said that Imagination wove this Flesh-Garment ; 
1 and does not she ? Metaphors are her stuff : examine Lan- 
1 guage ; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of 
1 natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognised as 
' such, or no longer recognised ; still fluid and florid, or now 
1 solid-grown and colourless? If those same primitive elements 
' are the osseous fixtures in the Flesh-Garment, Language, — then 
' are Metaphors its muscles and tissues and living integuments. 
' An unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek for : is not your 
' very Attention a Siretching-to? The difference lies here : some 

E 



SO SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

1 styles are lean, adust, wiry, the muscle itself seems osseous ; 
1 some are even quite pallid, hunger-bitten and dead-looking ; 
' while others again glow in the flush of health and vigorous 
' self-growth, sometimes (as in my own case) not without an 
' apoplectic tendency. Moreover, there are sham Metaphors, 
1 which overhanging that same Thought's-Body (best naked), 
' arid deceptively bedizening, or bolstering it out, may be called 
' its false stuffings, superfluous- show-cioaks {Putz-Mcintel), and 
1 tawdry woollen rags : whereof he that runs and reads may ga- 
' ther whole hampers, — and burn them.' 

Than which paragraph on Metaphors did the reader ever 
chance to see a more surprisingly metaphorical? However, that 
is not our chief grievance ; the Professor continues : 

' Why multiply instances ? It is written, the Heavens and 
1 the Earth shall fade away like a Vesture ; which indeed they 
' are : the Time-vesture of the Eternal. Whatsoever sensibly 
1 exists, whatsoever represents Spirit to Spirit, is properly a 
' Clothing, a suit of Raiment, put on for a season, and to be laid 
' off. Thus in this one pregnant subject of Clothes, rightly un- 
' derstood, is included all that men have thought, dreamed, done, 
1 and been : the whole External Universe and what it holds is 
• but Clothing ; and the essence of all Science lies in the Phi- 
' losophy of Clothes.' 

■ Towards these dim infinitely-expanded regions, close-border- 
ing on the impalpable Inane, it is not without apprehension, and 
perpetual difficulties, that the Editor sees himself journeying and 
struggling. Till lately a cheerful daystar of hope hung before 
him, in the expected Aid of Hofrath Heuschrecke ; which day- 
star, however, melts now, not into the red of morning, but into 
a vague, gray half-light, uncertain whether dawn of day or dusk 
of utter darkness. For the last week, these so-called Biographi- 
cal Documents are in his hand. By the kindness of a Scottish 
Hamburg Merchant, whose name, known to the whole mercan- 
tile world, he must not mention ; but whose honourable courtesy, 
now and often before spontaneously manifested to him, a mere 
literary stranger, he cannot soon forget, — the bulky Weissnicht- 
wo Packet, with all its Customhouse seals, foreign hieroglyphs, 
and miscellaneous tokens of Travel, arrived here in perfect 
safety, and free of cost. The reader shall now fancy with what 
hot haste it was broken up, with what breathless expectation 



chap, xl PROSPECTIVE. Si 

glanced over ; and, alas, with what unquiet disappointment it has, 
since then, been often thrown down, and again taken up. 

Hofrath Heuschrecke, in a too long-winded Letter, full of 
compliments, Weissnichtwo politics, dinners, dining repartees, 
and other ephemeral trivialities, proceeds to remind us of what 
we knew well already : that however it may be with Metaphysics, 
and other abstract Science originating in the Head (Verstand) 
alone, no Life-Philosophy {Lebensphilosophie), such as this of 
Clothes pretends to be, which originates equally in the Charac- 
ter (Gemiith), and equally speaks thereto, can attain its signifi- 
cance till the Character itself is known and seen ; * till the Au- 
'. thor's View of the World ( Weltansicht), and how he actively 

* and passively came by such view, are clear : in short till a Bi- 

* ography of him has been philosophico-poetically written, and 
1 philosophico-poetically read.' 'Nay,' adds he, 'were the spe- 
' dilative scientific Truth even known, you still, in this inquiring 
' age, ask yourself Whence came it, and Why, and How? — and 
1 rest not, till, if no better may be, Fancy have shaped-out an 

* answer; and either in the authentic lineaments of Fact, or the 
1 forged ones of Fiction, a complete picture and Genetical His- 
' tory of the Man and his spiritual Endeavour lies before you. 
' But why,' says the Hofrath, and indeed say we, 'do I dilate on 
1 the uses of our Teufelsdrockh's Biography? The great Flerr 
' Minister von Goethe has penetratingly remarked that " Man 
' is properly the only object that interests man :" thus I too have 
' noted, that in Weissnichtwo our whole conversation is little or 
1 nothing else but Biography or Auto-Biography; ever humano- 
' anecdotical (inenschlich-anekdotiscJi). Biography is by nature 

* the most universally profitable, universally pleasant of all things : 
' especially Biography of distinguished individuals. 

'By this time, mein Verehrtesler (my Most Esteemed),' con- 
tinues he, with an eloquence which, unless the words be pur- 
loined from Teufelsdrockh, or some trick of his, as we suspect, 
is well-nigh unaccountable, ' by this time you are fairly plunged 
' (vertieft) in that mighty forest of Clothes-Philosophy ; and look- 
1 ing round, as all readers do, with astonishment enough. Such 

* portions and passages as you have already mastered, and 
■ brought to paper, could not but awaken a strange curiosity 
1 touching the mind they issued from ; the perhaps unparalleled 
1 psychical mechanism, which manufactured such matter, and 



52 SARTOR RES ARTUS. book i. 

■ emitted it to the light of day. Had Teufelsdrockh also a father 
' and mother ; did he, at one time, wear drivel-bibs, and live on 
spoon-meat ? Did he ever, in rapture and tears, clasp a friend's 
bosom to his ; looks he also wistfully into the long burial-aisle 
1 of the Past, where only winds, and their low harsh moan, give 
1 inarticulate answer ? Has he fought duels ; — good Heaven ! 
' how did he comport himself when in Love ? By what singular 
1 stair-steps, in short, and subterranean passages, and sloughs 
1 of Despair, and steep Pisgah hills, has he reached this won- 
' derful prophetic Hebron (a true Old-Clothes Jewry) where he 
1 now dwells ? 

' To all these natural questions the voice of public History 
1 is as yet silent. Certain only that he has been, and is, a Pil- 
1 grim, and Traveller from a far Country ; more or less footsore 
' and travel -soiled ; has parted with road -companions ; fallen 
1 among thieves, been poisoned by bad cookery, blistered with 

* bugbites ; nevertheless, at every stage (for they have let him 

* pass), has had the Rill to discharge. But the whole particu- 
1 lars of his Route, his Weather -observations, the picturesque 
1 Sketches he took, though all regularly jotted down (in indelible 
' sympathetic -ink by an invisible interior Penman), are these 
' nowhere forthcoming ? Perhaps quite lost : one other leaf of 

* that mighty Volume (of human Memory) left to fly abroad, un- 
' printed, unpublished, unbound up, as waste paper ; and to rot, 
1 the sport of rainy winds ? 

1 No, verehrtester Herr Herausgeber, in no wise ! I here, 
1 by the unexampled favour you stand in with our Sage, send 
1 not a Biography only, but an Autobiography : at least the ma- 
1 terials for such ; wherefrom, if I misreckon not, your perspi- 
1 cacity will draw fullest insight : and so the whole Philosophy 
1 and Philosopher of Clothes will stand clear to the wondering 
1 eyes of England, nay thence, through America, through Hin- 
1 dostan, and the antipodal New Holland, finally conquer (ein- 

* nehmen) great part of this terrestrial Planet !' 

And now let the sympathising reader judge of our feeling 
when, in place of this same Autobiography with 'fullest insight,' 
we find — Six considerable Paper-Bags, carefully sealed, and 
marked successively, in gilt China-ink, with the symbols of the 
Six southern Zodiacal Signs, beginning at Libra ; in the inside 
of which sealed Bags lie miscellaneous masses of Sheets, and 



chap. xi. PROSPECTIVE. 53 

oftener Shreds and Snips, written in Professor Teufelsdrockh's 
scarce legible cursiv-schriftj and treating of all imaginable things 
under the Zodiac and above it, but of his own personal history 
only at rare intervals, and then in the most enigmatic manner. 

Whole fascicles there are, wherein the Professor, or, as he 
here, speaking in the third person, calls himself, ' the Wanderer,' 
is not once named. Then again, amidst what seems to be a 
Metaphysico-theological Disquisition, ' Detached Thoughts on 
the Steam-engine,' or, 'The continued Possibility of Prophecy,' 
we shall meet with some quite private, not unimportant Bio- 
graphical fact. On certain sheets stand Dreams, authentic or 
not, while the circumjacent waking Actions are omitted. Anec- 
dotes, oftenest without date of place or time, fly loosely on sepa- 
rate slips, like Sibylline leaves. Interspersed also are long purely 
Autobiographical delineations ; yet without connexion, without 
recognisable coherence ; so unimportant, so superfluously minute, 
they almost remind us of ' P.P. Clerk of this Parish.' Thus does 
famine of intelligence alternate with waste. Selection, order, 
appears to be unknown to the Professor. In all Bags the same 
imbroglio ; only perhaps in the Bag Capricorn, and those near 
it, the confusion a little worse confounded. Close by a rather 
eloquent Oration, ' On receiving the Doctor's- Hat,' lie wash- 
bills, marked bezahlt (settled). His Travels are indicated by 
the Street- Advertisements of the various cities he has visited ; 
of which Street-Advertisements, in most living tongues, here is 
perhaps the completest collection extant. 

So that if the Clothes- Volume itself was too like a Chaos, 
we have now instead of the solar Luminary that should still it, 
the airy Limbo which by intermixture will farther volatilise and 
discompose it ! As we shall perhaps see it our duty ultimately 
to deposit these Six Paper-Bags in the British Museum, farther 
description, and all vituperation of them, may be spared. Bio- 
graphy or Autobiography of Teufelsdrockh there is, clearly 
enough, none to be gleaned here : at most some sketchy, sha- 
dowy fugitive likeness of him may, by unheard-of efforts, partly 
of intellect, partly of imagination, on the side of Editor and of 
Reader, rise up between them. Only as a gaseous-chaotic Ap- 
pendix to that aqueous-chaotic Volume can the contents of the 
Six Bags hover round us, and portions thereof be incorporated 
with our delineation of it. 



54 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

Daily and nightly does the Editor sit (with green spectacles) 
deciphering these unimaginable Documents from their perplexed 
airsiv-schrift ; collating them with the almost equally unimagin- 
able Volume, which stands in legible print. Over such a uni- 
versal medley of high and low, of hot, cold, moist and dry, is 
he here struggling (by union of like with like, which is Method) 
to build a firm Bridge for British travellers. Never perhaps 
since our first Bridge-builders, Sin and Death, built that stu- 
pendous Arch from Hell-gate to the Earth, did any Pontifex, or 
Pontiff, undertake such a task as the present Editor. For in 
this Arch too, leading, as we humbly presume, far otherwards 
than that grand primeval one, the materials are to be fished-up 
from the weltering deep, and down from the simmering air, here 
one mass, there another, and cunningly cemented, while the ele- 
ments boil beneath : nor is there any supernatural force to do 
it with ; but simply the Diligence and feeble thinking Faculty 
of an English Editor, endeavouring to evolve printed Creation 
out of a German printed and written Chaos, wherein, as he shoots 
to and fro in it, gathering, clutching, piecing the Why to the 
far-distant Wherefore, his whole Faculty and Self are like to be 
swallowed up. 

Patiently, under these incessant toils and agitations, does 
the Editor, dismissing all anger, see his otherwise robust health 
declining ; some fraction of his allotted natural sleep nightly 
leaving him, and little but an inflamed nervous -system to be 
looked for. What is the use of health, or of life, if not to do 
some work therewith ? And what work nobler than transplant- 
ing foreign Thought into the barren domestic soil ; except indeed 
planting Thought of your own, which the fewest are privileged 
to do ? Wild as it looks, this Philosophy of Clothes, can we ever 
reach its real meaning, promises to reveal new-coming Eras, the 
first dim rudiments and already-budding germs of a nobler Era, 
in Universal History. Is not such a prize worth some striving? 
Forward with us, courageous reader ; be it towards failure, or 
towards success ! The latter thou sharest with us ; tile iormer 
also is not aii our own. 



BOOK SECOND. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENESIS. 

In a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable 
whether from birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinised soever, 
much insight is to be gained. Nevertheless, as in every pheno- 
menon the Beginning remains always the most notable moment ; 
so, with regard to any great man, we rest not till, for our sci- 
entific profit or not, the whole circumstances of his first appear- 
ance in this Planet, and what manner of Public Entry he made, 
are with utmost completeness rendered manifest. To the Genesis 
of our Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this First Chapter conse- 
crated. Unhappily, indeed, he seems to be of quite obscure ex- 
traction ; uncertain, we might almost say, whether of any : so 
that this Genesis of his can properly be nothing but an Exodus 
(or transit out of Invisibility into Visibility) ; whereof the pre- 
liminary portion is nowhere forthcoming. 

' In the village of Entepfuhl,' thus writes he, in the Bag 
Libra, on various Papers, which we arrange with difficulty, ' dwelt 

* Andreas Futteral and his wife ; childless, in still seclusion, and 

* cheerful though now verging towards old age. Andreas had 

* been grenadier Sergeant, and even regimental Schoolmaster 
■ under Frederick the Great ; but now, quitting the halbert and 
' ferule for the spade and pruning-hook, cultivated a little Orch- 
' ard, on the produce of which he, Cincinnatus-like, lived not 

* without dignity. Fruits, the peach, the apple, the grape, with 
4 other varieties came in their season ; all which Andreas knew 

* how to sell : on evenings he smoked largely, or read (as be- 
« seemed a regimental Schoolmaster), and talked to neighbours 



S6 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

' that would listen about the Victory of Rossbach ; and how 
' Fritz the Only {der Einzige) had once with his own royal lips 
' spoken to him, had been pleased to say, when Andreas as camp- 
' sentinel demanded the pass-word, " Schweig Hund (Peace, 
1 hound) !" before any of his staff-adjutants could answer. " Das 
' nenrt ich mir einen Ko?iig, There is what I call a King," would 
1 Andreas exclaim : " but the smoke of Kunersdorf was still 
1 smarting his eyes." 

' Gretchen, the housewife, won like Desdemona by the deeds 

■ rather than the looks of her now veteran Othello, lived not in 
1 altogether military subordination ; for, as Andreas said, "the 
1 womankind will not drill {wer kann die Weiberchen dressireii) :" 
1 nevertheless she at heart loved him both for valour and wis- 
' dom ; to her a Prussian grenadier Sergeant and Regiment's 
4 Schoolmaster was little other than a Cicero and Cid : what 
' you see, yet cannot see over, is as good as infinite. Nay, was 
1 not Andreas in very deed a man of order, courage, downright- 
1 ness (Geradheit) ; that understood Busching's Geography \ had 

* been in the victory of Rossbach, and left for dead in the 

■ camisade of Hochkirch ? The good Gretchen, for all her fret- 
' ting, watched over him and hovered round him as only a true 

* housemother can : assiduously she cooked and sewed and 

* scoured for him ; so that not only his old regimental sword 
1 and grenadier-cap, but the whole habitation and environment, 
1 where on pegs of honour they hung, looked ever trim and gay : 

* a roomy painted Cottage, embowered in fruit-trees and forest- 
' trees, evergreens and honeysuckles ; rising many-coloured from 
' amid shaven grass-plots, flowers struggling-in through the very 
' windows ; under its long projecting eaves nothing but garden- 

* tools in methodic piles (to screen them from rain), and seats 
1 where, especially on summer nights, a King might have wished 
' to sit and smoke, and call it his. Such a Bauergut (Copy- 
' hold) had Gretchen given her veteran ; whose sinewy arms, 
' and long-disused gardening talent, had made it what you saw. 

* Into this umbrageous Man's-nest, one meek yellow evening 

* or dusk, when the Sun, hidden indeed from terrestrial Ente- 
1 pfuhl, did nevertheless journey visible and radiant along the 

* celestial Balance {Libra), it was that a Stranger of reverend 

* aspect entered ; and, with grave salutation, stood before the 

* two rather astonished housemates. He was close-muffled in a 



chap. i. GENESIS. 57 

4 wide mantle ; which without farther parley unfolding, he de- 
4 posited therefrom what seemed some Basket, overhung with 

* green Persian silk ; saying only : Ihr lieben Leute, hier bringe 
r ein unschalzbares Verleihen; nehmtes in aller Acht, sorgfdltigst 

* beniitzt es : mit hohem Lohn, oder wohl mit schweren Zinsen, 
4 wird's einst zuriickgefordert. " Good Christian people, here 

* lies for you an invaluable Loan ; take all heed thereof, in all 
' carefulness employ it : with high recompense, or else with heavy 
1 penalty, will it one day be required back." Uttering which 
4 singular words, in a clear, bell-like, forever memorable tone, 
4 the Stranger gracefully withdrew ; and before Andreas or his 
4 wife, gazing in expectant wonder, had time to fashion either 
1 question or answer, was clean gone. Neither out of doors 
1 could aught of him be seen or heard ; he had vanished in the 
4 thickets, in the dusk ; the Orchard-gate stood quietly closed : 
4 the Stranger was gone once and always. So sudden had the 
1 whole transaction been, in the autumn stillness and twilight, 

* so gentle, noiseless, that the Futterals could have fancied it all 
1 a trick of Imagination, or some visit from an authentic Spirit. 
1 Only that the green-silk Basket, such as neither Imagination 
4 nor authentic Spirits are wont to carry, still stood visible and 

* tangible on their little parlour-table. Towards this the aston- 

* ished couple, now with lit candle, hastily turned their attention. 
' Lifting the green veil, to see what invaluable it hid, they de- 

* scried there, amid down and rich white wrappages, no Pitt Dia- 
4 mond or Hapsburg Regalia, but, in the softest sleep, a little 
' red-coloured Infant ! Beside it, lay a roll of gold Friedrichs, 
4 the exact amount of which was never publicly known ; also a 
■ Taufschei?i (baptismal certificate), wherein unfortunately no- 
4 thing but the Name was decipherable ; other document or in- 
' dication none whatever. 

4 To wonder and conjecture wa» unavailing, then and always 
1 thenceforth. Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next 
1 day, did tidings transpire of any such figure as the Stranger ; 
4 nor could the Traveller, who had passed through the neighbour- 
1 ing Town in coach-and-four, be connected with this Apparition, 
4 except in the way of gratuitous surmise. Meanwhile, for An- 
4 dreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was : What to 
4 do with this little sleeping red-coloured Infant ? Amid amaze- 
4 ments and curiosities, which had to die away without external 



$$ SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

' satisfying, they resolved, as in such circumstances charitable 
' prudent people needs must, on nursing it, though with spoon- 
' meat, into whiteness, and if possible into manhood. The 

* Heavens smiled on their endeavour: thus has that same mys- 
"' terious Individual ever since had a status for himself in this 
' visible Universe, some modicum of victual and lodging and 

* parade-ground ; and now expanded in bulk, faculty and know- 
1 ledge of good and evil, he, as Herr Diogenes Teufels- 
4 drockh, professes or is ready to profess, perhaps not alto- 
■ gether without effect, in the new University of Weissnichtwo, 
' the new Science of Things in General.' 

Our Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should think 
he well might, that these facts, first communicated, by the good 
Gretchen F.utteral, in his twelfth year, ' produced on the boyish 

* heart and fancy a quite indelible impression. Who this re- 
' verend Personage,' he says, 'that glided into the Orchard Cot- 

* tage when the Sun was in Libra, and then, as on spirit's 

* wings, glided out again, might be ? An inexpressible desire, 
' full of love and of sadness, has often since struggled within 

* me to shape an answer. Ever, in my distresses and my lone- 

* liness, has Fantasy turned, full of longing {sehnsuchtsvoll), to 

* that unknown Father, who perhaps far from me, perhaps near, 
' either way invisible, might have taken me to his paternal 
' bosom, there to lie screened from many a woe. Thou beloved 
1 Father, dost thou still, shut out from me only by thin pene- 
' trable curtains of earthly Space, wend to and fro among the 
' crowd of the living ? Or art thou hidden by those far thicker 
' curtains of the Everlasting Night, or rather of the Everlasting 
' Day, through which my mortal eye and outstretched arms 
' need not strive to reach ? Alas, I know not, and in vain vex 
' myself to know. More than once, heart-deluded, have I taken 
' for thee this and the other noble-looking Stranger ; and ap- 
' proached him wistfully, with infinite regard ; but he too had 
' to repel me, he too was not thou. 

1 And yet, O Man born of Woman,' cries the Autobiographer, 
with one of his sudden whirls, ' wherein is my case peculiar ? 
' Hadst thou, any more than I, a Fa.ther whom thou knowest ? 
' The Andreas and Gretchen, or the Adam and Eve, who led 
' thee into Life, and for a time suckled and pap-fed thee there, 

* whom thou namest Father and Mother ; these were, like mine, 



chap. i. GENESIS. 59 

1 but thy nursing -father and nursing-mother : thy true Begin- 
' ning and Father is in Heaven, whom with the bodily eye thou 
1 shalt never behold, but only with the spiritual.' 

'The little green veil,' adds he, among much similar moral- 
ising, and embroiled discoursing, ' I yet keep ; still more in- 
1 separably the Name, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh. From the veil 
1 can nothing be inferred : a piece of now quite faded Persian 
' silk, like thousands of others. On the Name I have many 
' times meditated and conjectured ; but neither in this lay there 

* any clue. That it was my unknown Father's name I must 

* hesitate to believe. To no purpose have I searched through 

* all the Herald's Books, in and without the German Empire, 
1 and through ail manner of Subscriber-Lists (Pranumeranten), 
' Militia-Rolls, and other Name-catalogues ; extraordinary names 

* as we have in Germany, the name Teufelsdrockh, except as 
' appended to my own person, nowhere occurs. Again, what 
' may the unchristian rather than Christian " Diogenes" mean ? 
1 Did that reverend Basket-bearer intend, by such designation, 
1 to shadow-forth my future destiny, or his own present malign 
' humour ? Perhaps the latter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starred 
' Parent, who like an Ostrich hadst to leave thy ill-starred off- 

* spring to be hatched into self-support by the mere sky-influ- 
' ences of Chance, can thy pilgrimage have been a smooth one? 
1 Beset by Misfortune thou doubtless hast been ; or indeed by 
' the worst figure of Misfortune, by Misconduct. Often have I 
' fancied how, in thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot at, and 

* slung at, wounded, hand-fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten and 
' bedevilled by the Time-Spirit {Zeitgeist) in thyself and others, 
' till the good soul first given thee was seared into grim rage ; 
1 and thou hadst nothing for it but to leave in me an indignant 
' appeal to the Future, and living speaking Protest against the 
' Devil, as that same Spirit not of the Time only, but of Time 

* itself, is well named ! Which Appeal and Protest, may I now 
' modestly add, was not perhaps quite lost in air. 

' For indeed, as Walter Shandy often insisted, there is much, 
1 nay almost all, in Names. The Name is the earliest Garment 
' you wrap round the earth-visiting Me ; to which it thenceforth 

* cleaves, more tenaciously (for there are Names that have lasted 
' nigh thirty centuries) than the very skin. And now from with- 
1 out, what mystic influences does it not send inwards, even to 



60 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

1 the centre ; especially in those plastic first -times, when the 
1 whole soul is yet infantine, soft, and the invisible seedgrain 
1 will grow to be an all overshadowing tree ! Names ? Could 
1 I unfold the influence of Names, which are the most important 
' of all Clothings, I were a second greater Trismegistus. Not 
1 only all common Speech, but Science, Poetry itself is no other, 
' if thou consider it, than a right Naming. Adam's first task 
1 was giving names to natural Appearances : what is ours still 
1 but a continuation of the same ; be the Appearances exotic- 
' vegetable, organic, mechanic, stars, or starry movements (as 
1 in Science) ; or (as in Poetry) passions, virtues, calamities, 

* God-attributes, Gods? — In a very plain sense the Proverb 
1 says, Call one a thief, and he will steal; in an almost similar 
1 sense may we not perhaps say, Call one Diogenes Teufels- 
1 drockh, and he will ope?i the Philosophy of Clothes f 

1 Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all ignorant 

* of his Why, his How or Whereabout, was opening his eyes to 
1 the kind Light ; sprawling-out his ten fingers and toes ; listen- 

* ing, tasting, feeling ; in a word, by all his Five Senses, still 

* more by his Sixth Sense of Hunger, and a whole infinitude of 
1 inward, spiritual, half-awakened Senses, endeavouring daily to 

* acquire for himself some knowledge of this strange Universe 

* where he had arrived, be his task therein what it might. In- 

* finite was his progress ; thus in some fifteen months, he could 
1 perform the miracle of — Speech ! To breed a fresh Soul, is 
1 it not like brooding a fresh (celestial) Egg ; wherein as yet all 

* is formless, powerless ; yet by degrees organic elements and 

* fibres shoot through the watery albumen ; and out of vague 

* Sensation grows Thought, grows Fantasy and Force, and we 
1 have Philosophies, Dynasties, nay Poetries and Religions ! 

'Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such 
■ diminutive had they in their fondness named him, travelled 
1 forward to those high consummations, by quick yet easy stages. 
1 The Futterals, to avoid vain talk, and moreover keep the roll 
' of gold Friedrichs safe, gave-out that he was a grand-nephew ; 
1 the orphan of some sister's daughter, suddenly deceased, in 
« Andreas's distant Prussian birthland ; of whom, as of her in- 

* digent sorrowing widower, little enough was known at Ente- 
« pfuhl. Heedless of all which, the Nurseling took to his spoon- 



chap. ii. IDYLLIC. 6 1 

i meat, and throve. I have heard him noted as a still infant, 
* that kept his mind much to himself; above all, that seldom 
1 or never cried. He already felt that time was precious ; that 
1 he had other work cut-out for him than whimpering.' 

Such, after utmost painful search and collation among these 
miscellaneous Paper-masses, is all the notice we can gather of 
Herr Teufelsdrockh's genealogy. More imperfect, more enig- 
matic it can seem to few readers than to us. The Professor, in 
whom truly we more and more discern a certain satirical turn, 
and deep under-currents of roguish whim, for the present stands 
pledged in honour, so we will not doubt him : but seems it not 
conceivable that, by the 'good Gretchen Futteral,' or some other 
perhaps interested party, he has himself been deceived ? Should 
these sheets, translated or not, ever reach the Entepfuhl Circu- 
lating Library, some cultivated native of that district might feel 
called to afford explanation. Nay, since Books, like invisible 
scouts, permeate the whole habitable globe, and Timbuctoo it- 
self is not safe from British Literature, may not some Copy find 
out even the mysterious basket-bearing Stranger, who in a state 
of extreme senility perhaps still exists ; and gently force even 
him to disclose himself; to claim openly a son, in whom any 
father may feel pride ? 



CHAPTER II. 

IDYLLIC. 

' Happy season of Childhood !' exclaims Teufelsdrockh : 
' Kind Nature, that art to all a bountiful mother ; that visitest 
1 the poor man's hut with auroral radiance ; and for thy Nurse- 

* ling hast provided a soft swathing of Love and infinite Hope, 
' wherein he waxes and slumbers, danced -round (timgaukeli) 
1 by sweetest Dreams ! If the paternal Cottage still shuts us in, 
' its roof still screens us ; with a Father we have as yet a pro- 

• phet, priest and king, and an Obedience that makes us free. 

* The young spirit has awakened out of Eternity, and knows 
' not what we mean by Time ; as yet Time is no fast-hurrying 
' stream, but a sportful sunlit ocean ; years to the child are as 

• ages : ah ! the secret of Vicissitude, of that slower or quicker 



62 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

' decay and ceaseless down - rushing of the universal World- 
1 fabric, from the granite mountain to the man or day-moth, is 

* yet unknown ; and in a motionless Universe, we taste, what 
1 afterwards in this quick-whirling Universe is forever denied 
1 us, the balm of Rest. Sleep on, thou fair Child, for thy long 
' rough journey is at hand ! A little while, and thou too shalt 
' sleep no more, but thy very dreams shall be mimic battles ; 
' thou too, with old Arnauld, wilt have to say in stern patience: 
' " Rest ? Rest ? Shall I not have all Eternity to rest in ?" 
1 Celestial Nepenthe ! though a Pyrrhus conquer empires, and 
' an Alexander sack the world, he finds thee not ; and thou hast 
1 once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on the eyelids, on the 
' heart of every mother's child, For as yet, sleep and waking 
' are one : the fair Life - garden rustles infinite around, and 
' everywhere is dewy fragrance, and the budding of Hope ; 
' which budding, if in youth, too frostnipt, it grow to flowers, 
1 will in manhood yield no fruit, but a prickly, bitter-rinded 

* stone-fruit, of which the fewest can find the kernel.' 

In such rose-coloured light does our Professor, as Poets arc 
wont, look back on his childhood; the historical details of which 
(to say nothing of much other vague oratorical matter) he ac- 
cordingly dwells on with an almost wearisome minuteness. We 
hear of Entepfuhl standing ' in trustful derangement' among the 
woody slopes ; the paternal Orchard flanking it as extreme out- 
post from below ; the little Kuhbach gushing kindly by, among 
beech-rows, through river after river, into the Donau, into the 
Black Sea, into the Atmosphere and Universe ; and how ' the 
brave old Linden,' stretching like a parasol of twenty ells in 
radius, overtopping all other rows and clumps, towered-up from 
the central Agora and Catrtpus Martius of the Village, like its 
Sacred Tree ; and how the old men sat talking under its sha- 
dow (Gneschen often greedily listening), and the wearied labour- 
ers reclined, and the unwearied children sported, and the young 
men and maidens often danced to flute-music. ' Glorious sum- 
' mer twilights,' cries Teufelsdrockh, 'when the Sun, like a proud 
' Conqueror and Imperial Taskmaster, turned his back, with his 
' gold-purple emblazonry, and all his fireclad body-guard (of 
1 Prismatic Colours) ; and the tired brickmakers of this clay 
' Earth might steal a little frolic, and those few meek Stars 

* would, not tell of them !' 



chap. ii. IDYLLIC. 63 

Then we have long details of the Weinlesen (Vintage), the 
Harvest-Home, Christmas, and so forth ; with a whole cycle of 
the Entepfuhl Children's -games, differing apparently by mere 
superficial shades from those of other countries. Concerning all 
which, we shall here, for obvious reasons, say nothing. What 
cares the world for our as yet miniature Philosopher's achieve- 
ments under that ' brave old Linden' ? Or even where is the 
use of such practical reflections as the following ? ' In all the 
' sports of Children, were it only in their wanton breakages and 
' defacements, you shall discern a creative instinct {schaffenden 

* Tried) : the Mankin feels that he is a born Man, that his voca- 
' tion is to work. The choicest present you can make him is a 
' Tool ; be it knife or pen-gun, for construction or for destruc- 
1 tion ; either way it is for Work, for Change. In gregarious 
' sports of skill or strength, the Boy trains himself to Coopera- 
1 tion, for war or peace, as governor or governed : the little Maid 
' again, provident of her domestic destiny, takes with preference 
' to Dolls.' 

Perhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, considering 
who it is that relates it : ' My first short-clothes were of yellow 
1 serge ; or rather, I should say, my first short-cloth, for the ves- 
' ture was one and indivisible, reaching from neck to ankle, a 
1 mere body with four limbs : of which fashion how little could 
' I then divine the architectural, how much less the moral sig- 
' nificance !' 

More graceful is the following little picture : ' On fine even- 
' ings I was wont to carry-forth my supper (bread-crumb boiled 
1 in milk), and eat it out-of-doors. On the coping of the Orchard- 
1 wall, which I could reach by climbing, or still more easily if 
' Father Andreas would set-up the pruning-ladder, my porringer 
' was placed : there, many a sunset, have I, looking at the dis- 
' tant western Mountains, consumed, not without relish, my even- 
' ing meal. Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of World's 

• expectation as Day died, were still a Hebrew Speech for me ; 
' nevertheless I was looking at the fair illuminated Letters, and 
1 had an eye for their gilding.' 

With 'the little one's friendship for cattle and poultry' we 
shall not much intermeddle. It may be that hereby he acquired 
a ' certain deeper sympathy with animated Nature :' but when, 
we would ask, saw any man, in a collection of Biographical 



64 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

Documents, such a piece as this : ' Impressive enough {bedent- 
1 tmgsvoll) was it to hear, in early morning, the Swineherd's 
1 horn ; and know that so many hungry happy quadrupeds were, 
1 on all sides, starting in hot haste to join him, for breakfast on 

* the Heath. Or to see them at eventide, all marching-in again, 
1 with short squeak, almost in military order ; and each, topo- 
1 graphically correct, trotting-off in succession to the right or left, 
1 through its own lane, to its own dwelling ; till old Kunz, at the 
1 Village-head, now left alone, blew his last blast, and retired 
' for the night. We are wont to love the Hog chiefly in the 
1 form of Ham ; yet did not these bristly thick-skinned beings 
' here manifest intelligence, perhaps humour of character ; at 
' any rate, a touching, trustful submissiveness to Man, — who, 
1 were he but a Swineherd, in darned gabardine, and leather 
' breeches more resembling slate or discoloured-tin breeches, is 
' still the Hierarch of this lower world ?' 

It is maintained, by Helvetius and his set, that an infant of 
genius is quite the same as any other infant, only that certain 
surprisingly favourable influences accompany him through life, 
especially through childhood, and expand him, while others lie 
closefolded and continue dunces. Herein, say they, consists the 
whole difference between an inspired Prophet and a double-bar- 
relled Game-preserver : the inner man of the one has been fos- 
tered into generous development; that of the other, crushed-down 
perhaps by vigour of animal digestion, and the like, has exuded 
and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably stagnant at 
the bottom of his stomach. With which opinion,' cries Teufels- 
drockh, ' I should as soon agree as with this other, that an acorn 
' might, by favourable or unfavourable influences of soil and 
' climate, be nursed into a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into 
1 an oak. 

'Nevertheless,' continues he, 'I too acknowledge the ail-but 
1 omnipotence of early culture and nurture : hereby we have either 
1 a doddered dwarf bush, or a high -towering, wide-shadowing 
' tree ; either a sick yellow cabbage, or an edible luxuriant green 
' one. Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of all 
' philosophers, to note- down with accuracy the characteristic 

* circumstances of their Education, what furthered, what hin- 
' dered, what in any way modified it : to which duty, nowadays 

* so pressing for many a German Autobiographer, I also zeal- 



chap. ii. IDYLLIC 6$ 

* ously address myself.' — Thou rogue ! Is it by short-clothes 
of yellow serge, and swineherd horns, that an infant of genius is 
educated ? And yet, as usual, it ever remains doubtful whether 
he is laughing in his sleeve at these Autobiographical times of 
ours, or writing from the abundance of his own fond ineptitude. 
For he continues : ' If among the ever -streaming currents of 
' Sights, Hearings, Feelings for Pain or Pleasure, whereby, as 
1 in a Magic Hall, young Gneschen went about environed, I 

* might venture to select and specify, perhaps these following 

* were also of the number : 

• Doubtless, as childish sports call forth Intellect, Activity, 

* so the young creature's Imagination was stirred up, and a His- 
' torical tendency given him by the narrative habits of Father 

■ Andreas ; who, with his battle-reminiscences, and gray austere 
6 yet hearty patriarchal aspect, could not but appear another 

* Ulysses and "much-enduring Man." Eagerly I hung upon his 
1 tales, when listening neighbours enlivened the hearth ; from 
1 these perils and these travels, wild and far almost as Hades 
1 itself, a dim world of Adventure expanded itself within me. 
' Incalculable also was the knowledge I acquired in standing 
1 by the Old Men under the Linden-tree : the whole of Immensity 

* was yet new to me ; and had not these reverend seniors, talk- 
' ative enough, been employed in partial surveys thereof for 
4 nigh fourscore years ? With amazement I began to discover 

* that Entepfuhl stood in the middle of a Country, of a World ; 
' that there was such a thing as History, as Biography ; to 
' which I also, one day, by hand and tongue, might contribute. 

' In a like sense worked the Postwagen (Stage-coach), which, 
1 slow-rolling under its mountains of men and luggage, wended 
' through our Village : northwards, truly, in the dead of night ; 
' yet southwards visibly at eventide. Not till my eighth year 
1 did I reflect that this Postwagen could be other than some 
terrestrial Moon, rising and setting by mere Law of Nature, 

■ like the heavenly one ; that it came on made highways, from 
1 far cities towards far cities ; weaving them like a monstrous 
1 shuttle into closer and closer union. It was then that, inde- 
' pendently of Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, I made this not quite 
' insignificant reflection (so true also in spiritual things) : Any 
' road, this simple Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of 
« the World! 

F 



66 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

' Why mention our Swallows, which, out of far Africa, as 

* I learned, threading their way over seas and mountains, cor- 
f porate cities and belligerent nations, yearly found themselves, 

* with the month of May, snug-lodged in our Cottage Lobby ? 
' The hospitable Father (for cleanliness' sake) had fixed a little 
' bracket plumb under their nest : there they built, and caught 

* flies, and twittered, and bred ; and all, I chiefly, from the heart 
1 loved them. Bright, nimble creatures, who taught you the 
\ mason-craft ; nay, stranger still, gave you a masonic incorpora- 
' tion, almost social police ? For if, by ill chance, and when 
' time pressed, your House fell, have I not seen five neighbourly 
' Helpers appear next day ; and swashing to and fro, with ani- 
' mated, loud, long-drawn chirpings, and activity almost super- 
1 hirundine, complete it again before nightfall ? 

1 But undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl child's- 
' culture, where as in a funnel its manifold influences were con- 
1 centrated and simultaneously poured -down on us, was the 
' annual Cattle-fair. Here, assembling from all the four winds, 
1 came the elements of an unspeakable hurlyburly. Nutbrown 
' maids and nutbrown men, all clear-washed, loud-laughing, be- 
' dizened and beribanded ; who came for dancing, for treating, 
' and if possible, for happiness. Topbooted Graziers from the 
1 North ; Swiss Brokers, Italian Drovers, also topbooted, from 
S the South ; these with their subalterns in leather jerkins, lea- 
t ther skull-caps, and long oxgoads ; shouting in half-articulate 
I speech, amid the inarticulate barking and bellowing. Apart 
■ stood Potters from far Saxony, with their crockery in fair rows ; 
' Niirnberg Pedlars, in booths that to me seemed richer than 
' Ormuz bazaars ; Showmen from the Lago Maggiore ; detach- 
' ments of the Wiener Schub (Offscourings of Vienna) vocifer- 
' ously superintending games of chance. Ballad-singers brayed, 
J Auctioneers grew hoarse ; cheap New Wine iheuriger) flowed 
1 like water, still worse confounding the confusion ; and high 
\ over all, vaulted, in ground-and-lofty tumbling, a particoloured 
\ Merry- Andrew, like the genius of the place and of Life itself. 

•'Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence; under the 

* deep heavenly Firmament ; waited-on by the four golden Sea- 

* sons, with their vicissitudes of contribution, for even grim 
\ Winter brought its skating-matches and shooting-matches, its 
1 snow-storms and Christmas -carols, — did the Child sit and 



chap. ii. IDYLLIC. 67 

' learn. These things were the Alphabet, whereby in after-time 
' he was to syllable and partly read the grand Volume of the 
' World : what matters it whether such Alphabet be in large 
' gilt letters or in small ungilt ones, so you have an eye to read 

* it ? For Gneschen, eager to learn, the very act of looking 

* thereon was a blessedness that gilded all : his existence was 
' a bright, soft element of Joy ; out of which, as in Prospero's 

* Island, wonder after wonder bodied itself forth, to teach by 
' charming. 

' Nevertheless, I were but a vain dreamer to say, that even 
' then my felicity was perfect. I had, once for all, come down 
' from Heaven into the Earth. Among the rainbow colours that 
' glowed on my horizon, lay even in childhood a dark ring of 
' Care, as yet no thicker than a thread, and often quite over- 
' shone ; yet always it reappeared, nay ever waxing broader and 
' broader ; till in after-years it almost over-shadowed my whole 
' canopy, and threatened to engulf me in final night. It was 
' the ring of Necessity whereby we are all begirt ; happy he for 
' whom a kind heavenly Sun brightens it into a ring of Duty, 
' and plays round it with beautiful prismatic diffractions ; yet 
' ever, as basis and as bourne for our whole being, it is there. 

1 For the first few years of our terrestrial Apprenticeship, we 
' have not much Vork to do ; but, boarded and lodged gratis, 
' are set down mostly to look about us over the workshop, and 
1 see others work, till we have understood the tools a little, and 
' can handle this and that. If good Passivity alone, and not 
1 good Passivity and good Activity together, were the thing 
' wanted, then was my early position favourable beyond the 
1 most. In all that respects openness of Sense, affectionate 
' Temper, ingenuous Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what 

* more could I have wished ? On the other side, however, things 
' went not so well. My Active Power ( Thatkraft) was unfavour- 
1 ably hemmed-in ; of which misfortune how many traces yet 
1 abide with me ! In an orderly house, where the litter of chil- 
1 dren's sports is hateful enough, your training is too stoical ; 
1 rather to bear and forbear than to make and do. I was forbid 

much : wishes in any measure bold I had to renounce ; every- 
1 where a strait bond of Obedience inflexibly held me down. 
' Thus already Freewill often came in. painful collision with Ne- 



6S SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

* cessity ; so that my tears flowed, and at seasons the Child itself 

■ might taste that root of bitterness, wherewith the whole fruit- 

■ age of our life is mingled and tempered. 

* In which habituation to Obedience, truly, it was beyond 

* measure safer to err by excess than by defect. Obedience is 

* our universal duty and destiny ; wherein whoso will not bend 

* must break : too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained 
1 to know that Would, in this world of ours, is as mere zero to 
1 Should, and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to 

* Shall. Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly Discretion, 

* nay of Morality itself. Let me not quarrel with my upbringing. 
1 It was rigorous, too frugal, compressively secluded, everyway 
' unscientific : yet in that very strictness and domestic solitude 
' might there not lie the root of deeper earnestness, of the stem 
' from which all noble fruit must grow ? Above all, how un- 

* skilful soever, it was loving, it was well-meant, honest ; whereby 

* every deficiency was helped. My kind Mother, for as such I 

* must ever love the good Gretchen, did me one altogether in- 
' valuable service : she taught me, less indeed by word than by 
' act and daily reverent look and habitude, her own simple ver- 

* sion of the Christian Faith. Andreas too attended Church ; 
' yet more like a parade-duty, for which he in the other world 

* expected pay with arrears, — as, I trust, he has received ; but 
' my Mother, with a true woman's heart, and fine though un- 

* cultivated sense, was in the strictest acceptation Religious. 
' How indestructibly the Good grows, and propagates itself, 
' even among the weedy entanglements of Evil ! The highest 
' whom I knew on Earth I here saw bowed down, with awe un- 
1 speakable, before a Higher in Heaven : such things, especially 
1 in infancy, reach inwards to the very core of your being ; •mys- 
' teriously does a Holy of Holies build itself into visibility in the 
1 mysterious deeps ; and Reverence, the divinest in man, springs 

* forth undying from its mean envelopment of Fear. Wouldst 
' thou rather be a peasant's son that knew, were it never so 
' rudely, there was a God in Heaven and in Man ; or a duke's 
' son that only knew there were two-and-thirty quarters on the 
' family-coach ?' 

To which last question we must answer : Beware, O Teufels- 
drockh, of spiritual pride ! 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY* 69 



CHAPTER III. 

PEDAGOGY. 

Hitherto we see young Gneschen, in his indivisible case of 
yellow serge, borne forward mostly on the arms of kind Nature 
alone ; seated, indeed, and much to his mind, in the terrestrial 
workshop, but (except his soft hazel eyes, which we doubt not 
already gleamed with a still intelligence) called upon for little 
voluntary movement there. Hitherto, accordingly, his aspect is 
rather generic, that of an incipient Philosopher and Poet in the 
abstract ; perhaps it would puzzle Herr Heuschrecke himself to 
say wherein the special Doctrine of Clothes is as yet foreshadowed 
. or betokened. For with Gneschen, as with others, the Man may 
indeed stand pictured in the Boy (at least all the pigments are 
there) ; yet only some half of the Man stands in the Child, or 
young Boy, namely, his Passive endowment, not his Active. 
The more impatient are we to discover what figure he cuts in 
this latter capacity ; how, when, to use his own words, * he un- 
derstands the tools a little, and can handle this or that,' he will 
proceed to handle it. 

Here, however, may be the place to state that, in much of 
our Philosopher's history, there is something of an almost Hin- 
doo character : nay perhaps in that so well-fostered and every- 
way excellent ' Passivity* of his, which, with no free development 
of the antagonist Activity, distinguished his childhood, we may 
detect the rudiments of much that, in after days, and still in these 
present days, astonishes the world. For the shallow-sighted, Teu- 
felsdrockh is oftenest a man without Activity of any kind, a No- 
man ; for the deep-sighted, again, a man with Activity almost 
superabundant, yet so spiritual, close-hidden, enigmatic, that no 
mortal can foresee its explosions, or even when it has exploded, 
so much as ascertain its significance. A dangerous, difficult 
temper for the modern European ; above all, disadvantageous 
in the hero of a Biography ! Now as heretofore it will behove 
the Editor of these pages, were it never so unsuccessfully, to do 
his endeavour. 

Among the earliest tools of any complicacy which a man, 
especially a man of letters, gets to handle, are his Class-books. 



7o SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

On this portion of his History, Teufelsdrockh looks down pro- 
fessedly as indifferent. Reading he * cannot remember ever to 
have learned ;' so perhaps had it by nature. He says generally : 
1 Of the insignificant portion of my Education, which depended 
' on Schools, there need almost no notice be taken. I learned 

* what others learn ; and kept it stored-by in a corner of my 
1 head, seeing as yet no manner of use in it. My Schoolmaster, 

* a downbent, brokenhearted, underfoot martyr, as others of that 
' guild are, did little for me, except discover that he could do 
' little : he, good soul, pronounced me a genius, fit for the 

* learned professions ; and that I must be sent to the Gymna- 
' slum, and one day to the University. Meanwhile, what printed 
' thing soever I could meet with I read. My very copper pocket- 
1 money I laid-out on stall-literature ; which, as it accumulated, 
1 I with my own hands sewed into volumes. By this means was 
c the young head furnished with a considerable miscellany of 
' things and shadows of things : History in authentic fragments 
1 lay mingled with Fabulous chimeras, wherein also was reality ; 
■ and the whole not as dead stuff, but as living pabulum, toler- 
1 ably, nutritive for a mind as yet so peptic' 

That the Entepfuhl Schoolmaster judged well, we now know. 
Indeed, already in the youthful Gneschen, with all his outward 
stillness, there may have been manifest an inward vivacity that 
promised much ; symptoms of a spirit singularly open, thought- 
ful, almost poetical. Thus, to say nothing of his Suppers on 
the Orchard-wall, and other phenomena of that earlier period, 
have many readers of these pages stumbled, in their twelfth 
year, on such reflections as the following? 'It struck me much, 
' as I sat by the Kuhbach, one silent noontide, and watched it 
1 flowing, gurgling, to think how this same streamlet had flowed 
' and gurgled, through all changes of weather and of fortune, 
' from beyond the earliest date of History. Yes, probably on 
' the morning when Joshua forded Jordan; even as at the mid- 
1 day when Csesar, doubtless with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet 
' kept his Commentaries dry, — this little Kuhbach, assiduous as 
' Tiber, Eurotas or Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilder- 
' ness, as yet unnamed, unseen : here, too, as in the Euphrates 
' and the Ganges, is a vein or veinlet of the grand World-cir- 
1 culation of Waters, which, with its atmospheric arteries, has 
' lasted and lasts simply with the World. Thou fool ! Nature 



ghap. in. PEDAGOGY. 71 

* alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom ; that idle 
4 crag thou sittest on is six-thousand years of age.' In which 
little thought, as in a little fountain, may there not lie the begin- 
ning of those well-nigh unutterable meditations on the grandeur 
and mystery of Time, and its relation to Eternity, which play 
such a part in this Philosophy of Clothes ? 

Over his Gymnasic and Academic years the Professor by no 
means lingers so lyrical and joyful as over his childhood. Green 
sunny tracts there are still ; but intersected by bitter rivulets ox 
tears, here and there stagnating into sour marshes of discontent. 
4 With my first view of the Hinterschlag Gymnasium,' writes he, 

* my evil days began. Well do I still remember the red sunny 
' Whitsuntide morning, when, trotting full of hope by the side 

* of Father Andreas, I entered the main street of the place, and 

* saw its steeple-clock (then striking Eight) and Schuldthurm 
4 (Jail), and the aproned or disaproned Burghers moving-in to 
4 breakfast : a little dog, in mad terror, was rushing past ; for 

* some human imps had tied a tin-kettle to its tail ; thus did the 

* agonised creature, loud-jingling, career through the whole length 

* of the Borough, and become notable enough. Fit emblem oi 

* many a Conquering Hero, to whom Fate (wedding Fantasy to 

* Sense, as it often elsewhere does) has malignantly appended a 

* tin-kettle of Ambition, to chase him on ; which the faster he 

* runs, urges him the faster, the more loudly and more foolishly ! 
4 Fit emblem also of much that awaited myself, in that mischiev- 
4 ous Den ; as in the World, whereof it was a portion and epi- 
4 tome ! 

4 Alas, the kind beech-rows of Entepfuhl were hidden in the 
4 distance : I was among strangers, harshly, at best indifTer- 
4 ently, disposed towards me ; the young heart felt, for the first 
4 time, quite orphaned and alone.' His schoolfellows, as is usual, 
persecuted him : 4 They were Boys,' he says, 4 mostly rude Boys, 
4 and obeyed the impulse of rude Nature, which bids the deer- 
4 herd fall upon any stricken hart, the duck-flock put to death 
4 any broken -winged brother or sister, and on all hands the 
4 strong tyrannise over the weak.' He admits, that though 4 per- 
4 haps in an unusual degree morally courageous,' fie succeeded 
ill in battle, and would fain have avoided it ; a result, as would 
appear, owing less to his small personal stature (for in passion- 
ate seasons he was 4 incredibly nimble'), than to his 4 virtuous 



72 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

1 principles :' ■ if it was disgraceful to be beaten,' says he, ' it 

• was only a shade less disgraceful to have so much as fought ; 
' thus was I drawn two ways at once, and in this important 
' element of school-history, the war-element, had little but sor- 
' row.' On the whole, that same excellent ' Passivity/ so not- 
able in Teufelsdrockh's childhood, is here visibly enough again 
getting nourishment. ' He wept often ; indeed to such a degree 
' that he was nicknamed Der Weinende (the Tearful), which 
1 epithet, till towards his thirteenth year, was indeed not quite 

• unmerited. Only at rare intervals did the young soul burst- 
' forth into fire-eyed rage, and, with a stormfulness ( Ungestihri) 
' under which the boldest quailed, assert that he too had Rights 
' of Man, or at least of Mankin.' In all which, who does not 
discern a fine flower-tree and cinnamon-tree (of genius) nigh 
choked among pumpkins, reed-grass and ignoble shrubs ; and 
forced if it would live, to struggle upwards only, and not out- 
wards ; into a height quite sickly, and disproportioned to its 
breadth f 

We find, moreover, that his Greek and Latin were 'me- 
chanically' taught ; Hebrew scarce even mechanically ; much 
else which they called History, Cosmography, Philosophy, and 
so forth, no better than not at all. So that, except inasmuch 
as Nature was still busy ; and he himself ' went about, as was 

• of old his wont, among the Craftsmen's workshops, there learn- 

• ing many things ;' and farther lighted on some small store of 
curious reading, in Hans Wachtel the Cooper's house, where 
he lodged, — his time, it would appear, was utterly wasted. 
Which facts the Professor has not yet learned to look upon 
with any contentment. Indeed, throughout the whole of this 
Bag Scorpio, where we now are, and often in the following Bag, 
he shows himself unusually animated on the matter of Educa- 
tion, and not without some touch of what we might presume to 
be anger. 

' My Teachers,' says he, 'were hide-bound Pedants, without 
1 knowledge of man's nature, or of boy's ; or of aught save their 
' lexicons and quarterly account-books. Innumerable dead Vo- 
' cables (no* dead Language, for they themselves knew no Lan- 
' guage^ they crammed into us, and called it fostering the 
' growth of mind. How can an inanimate, mechanical Gerund- 
' grinder, the like of whom will, in a subsequent century, be 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 73 

' manufactured at Niirnberg out of wood and leather, foster the 
' growth of anything ; much more of Mind, which grows, not 

* like a vegetable (by having its roots littered with etymological 

* compost), but like a spirit, by mysterious contact ofSpirit ; 
' Thought kindling itself at the fire of living Thought ? How 

* shall he give kindling, in whose own inward man there is no 
' live coal, but all is burnt-out to a dead grammatical cinder ? 
' The Hinterschlag Professors knew syntax enough ; and of the 

• human soul thus much : that it had a faculty called Memory, 
1 and could be acted -on through the muscular integument by 
' appliance of birch-rods. 

' Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be ; till the Hod- 
1 man is discharged, or reduced to hodbearing ; and an Archi- 
' tect is hired, and on all hands fitly encouraged : till commu- 
' nities and individuals discover, not without surprise, that 

* fashioning the souls of a generation by Knowledge can rank 
' on a level with blowing their bodies to pieces by Gunpowder ; 
' that with Generals and Fieldmarshals for killing, there should 
■ be world-honoured Dignitaries, and were it possible, true God- 
' ordained Priests, for teaching. But as yet, though the Soldier 
' wears openly, and even parades, his butchering-tool, nowhere, 
' far as I have travelled, did the Schoolmaster make show of 

• his instructing-tool : nay, were he to walk abroad with birch 
' girt on thigh, as if he therefrom expected honour, would there 
' not, among the idler class, perhaps a certain levity be excited ?' 

In the third year of this Gymnasic period, ' Father Andreas 
seems to have died : the young Scholar, otherwise so maltreated, 
saw himself for the first time clad outwardly in sables, and in- 
wardly in quite inexpressible melancholy. * The dark bottom- 
' less Abyss, that lies under our feet, had yawned open ; the 

• pale kingdoms of Death, with all their innumerable silent na- 
' tions and generations, stood before him ; the inexorable word, 
' Never ! now first showed its meaning. My Mother wept, 
' and her sorrow got vent ; but in my heart there lay a whole 
1 lake of tears, pent-up in silent desolation. Nevertheless the 
1 unworn Spirit is strong ; Life is so healthful that it even finds 
4 nourishment in Death : these stern experiences, planted down 

• by Memory in my Imagination, rose there to a whole cypress- 
1 forest, sad but beautiful ; waving, with not unmelodious sighs, 
' in dark luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine, through long years 



74 SARTOR RESARTUS. book it. 

■ of youth : — as in manhood also it does, and will do ; for I 
1 have now pitched my tent under a Cypress-tree ; the Tomb is 
' now my inexpugnable Fortress, ever close by the gate of which 
1 I look upon the hostile armaments, and pains and penalties of 
' tyrannous Life placidly enough, and listen to its loudest threat- 
1 enings with a still smile. O ye loved ones, that already sleep 
1 in the noiseless Bed of Rest, whom in life I could only weep 
1 for and never help ; and ye, who wide-scattered still toil lonely 
' in the monster-bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground with 
1 your blood, — yet a little while, and we shall all meet there, 

* and our Mothers bosom will screen us all ; and Oppression's 
1 harness, and Sorrow's fire-whip, and all the Gehenna Bailiffs 

* that patrol and inhabit ever-vexed Time, cannot thenceforth 
' harm us any more !' 

Close by which rather beautiful apostrophe, lies a laboured 
Character of the deceased Andreas Futterai ; of his natural 
ability, his deserts in life (as Prussian Sergeant) ; with long 
historical inquiries into the genealogy of the Futterai Family, 
here traced back as far as Henry the Fowler : the whole of 
which we pass over, not without astonishment. It only concerns 
us to add, that now was the time when Mother Gretchen re- 
vealed to her foster-son that he was not at all of this kindred ; 
or indeed of any kindred, having come into historical existence 
in the way already known to us. * Thus was I doubly orphaned,' 
says he ; ' bereft not only of Possession, but even of Remem- 

* brance. Sorrow and Wonder, here suddenly united, could not 
' but produce abundant fruit. Such a disclosure, in such a sea- 
1 son, struck its roots through my whole nature : ever till the 

* years of mature manhood, it mingled with my whole thoughts, 

* was as the stem whereon all my day-dreams and night-dreams 
' grew. A certain poetic elevation, yet also a corresponding 

* civic depression, it naturally imparted : / was like no other; 
1 in which fixed-idea, leading sometimes to highest, and oftener 
' to frightfullest results, may there not lie the first spring of 

* tendencies, which in my Life have become remarkable enough ? 

* As in birth, so in action, speculation, and social position, my 

* fellows are perhaps not numerous.' 

In the Bag Sagittarius, as we at length discover, Teufels- 
drockh has become a University man ; though how, when, or 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. ?$ 

of what quality, will nowhere disclose itself with the smallest 
certainty. Few things, in the way of confusion and capricious 
indistinctness, can now surprise our readers ; not even the total 
want of dates, almost without parallel in a Biographical work. 
So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always found, and must al- 
ways look to find, these scattered Leaves. In Sagittarius, how- 
ever, Teufelsdrockh begins to show himself even more than 
usually Sibylline : fragments of all sorts ; scraps of regular Me- 
moir, College-Exercises, Programs, Professional Testimoniums, 
Milkscores, torn Billets, sometimes to appearance of an amatory 
cast ; all blown together as if by merest chance, henceforth be- 
wilder the sane Historian. To combine any picture of these 
University, and the subsequent, years ; much more, to decipher 
therein any illustrative primordial elements of the Clothes-Phi- 
losophy, becomes such a problem as the reader may imagine. 

So much we can see ; darkly, as through the foliage of some 
wavering thicket : a youth of no common endowment, who has 
passed happily through Childhood, less happily yet still vigor- 
ously through Boyhood, now at length perfect in * dead vocables,' 
and set down, as he hopes, by the living Fountain, there to 
superadd Ideas and Capabilities. From such Fountain he draws, 
diligently, thirstily, yet never or seldom with his whole heart, 
for the water nowise suits his palate ; discouragements, entangle- 
ments, aberrations are discoverable or supposable. Nor perhaps 
are even pecuniary distresses wanting ; for ' the good Gretchen, 
1 who in spite of advices from not disinterested relatives has 
1 sent him hither, must after a time withdraw her willing but 
' too feeble hand.' Nevertheless in an atmosphere of Poverty 
and manifold Chagrin, the Humour of that young Soul, what 
character is in him, first decisively reveals itself; and, like 
strong sunshine in weeping skies, gives out variety of colours, 
some of which are prismatic. Thus, with the aid of Time and 
of what Time brings, has the stripling Diogenes Teufelsdrockh 
waxed into manly stature ; and into so questionable an aspect, 
that we ask with new eagerness, How he specially came by it, 
and regret anew that there is no more explicit answer. Certain 
of the intelligible and partially significant fragments, which are 
few in number, shall be extracted from that Limbo of a Paper- 
bag, and presented with the usual preparation. 

As if, in the Bag Scorpio, Teufelsdrockh had not already 



76 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

expectorated his antipedagogic spleen ; as if, from the name 
Sagittarius, he had thought himself called upon to shoot arrows, 
we here again fall-in with such matter as this : ' The University 

* where I was educated still stands vivid enough in my remem- 

* brance, and I know its name well ; which name, however, I, 
' from tenderness to existing interests and persons, shall in no- 
1 wise divulge. It is my painful duty to say that, out of Eng- 
' land and Spain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered 
1 Universities. This is indeed a time when right Education is, 
' as nearly as may be, impossible : however, in degrees of 
' wrongness there is no limit : nay, I can conceive a worse sys- 

* tern than that of the Nameless itself; as poisoned victual may 
4 be worse than absolute hunger. 

* It is written, When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall 
1 into the ditch : wherefore, in such circumstances, may it not 

* sometimes be safer, if both leader and lead simply — sit still ? 
' Had you, anywhere in Crim Tartary, walled-in a square en- 
1 closure ; furnished it with a small, ill -chosen Library ; and 

* then turned loose into it eleven-hundred Christian striplings, 
1 to tumble about as they listed, from three to seven years : cer- 

* tain persons, ,under the title of Professors, being stationed at 

* the gates, to declare aloud that it was a University, and exact 

* considerable admission-fees, — you had, not indeed in mechani- 
1 cal structure, yet in spirit and result, some imperfect resem- 
1 blance of our Hjgh Seminary. I say, imperfect ; for if our 
' mechanical structure was quite other, so neither was our re- 
■ suit altogether the same : unhappily, we were not in Crim 
' Tartary, but in a corrupt European city, full of smoke and 

* sin ; moreover, in the middle of a Public, which, without far 
1 costlier apparatus than that of the Square Enclosure, and De- 
1 claration aloud, you could not be sure of gulling. 

* Gullible, however, by fit apparatus, all Publics are ; and 
' gulled, with the most surprising profit. Towards anything like 

* a Statistics of Imposture, indeed, little as yet has been done : 

* with a strange indifference, our Economists, nigh buried under 

* Tables for minor Branches* of Industry, have altogether over- 

* looked the grand all-overtopping Hypocrisy Branch ; as if our 

* whole arts of Puffery, of Quackery, Priestcraft, Kingcraft, and 

* the innumerable other crafts and mysteries of that genus, had 

* not ranked in Productive Industry at all ! Can any one, for 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 77 

* example, so much as say, What moneys, in Literature and 
1 Shoeblacking, are realised by actual Instruction and actual jet 
' Polish ; what by fictitious -persuasive Proclamation of such ; 
' specifying, in distinct items, the distributions, circulations, dis- 

* bursements, incomings of said moneys, with the smallest ap- 
' proach to accuracy ? But to ask, How far, in all the several 
' infinitely-complected departments of social business, in govern- 
' ment, education, in manual, commercial, intellectual fabrica- 

* tion of every sort, man's Want is supplied by true Ware ; how 

* far by the mere Appearance of true Ware : — in other words, 
' To what extent, by what methods, with what effects, in various 

* times and countries, Deception takes the place of wages of 
1 Performance : here truly is an Inquiry big with results for the 
' future time, but to which hitherto only the vaguest answer can 
1 be given. If for the present, in our Europe, we estimate the 
' ratio of Ware to Appearance of Ware so high even as at One 
' to a Hundred (which, considering the Wages of a Pope, Rus- 
' sian Autocrat, or English Game-Preserver, is probably not far 
1 from the mark), — what almost prodigious saving may there 

* not be anticipated, as the Statistics of Imposture advances, 

* and so the manufacturing of Shams (that of Realities rising 
1 into clearer and clearer distinction therefrom) gradually de- 

* dines, and at length becomes all but wholly unnecessary ! 

1 This for the coming golden ages. What I had to remark, 

* for the present brazen one, is, that in several provinces, as in 
1 Education, Polity, Religion, where so much is wanted and in- 

* dispensable, and so little can as yet be furnished, probably 
' Imposture is of sanative, anodyne nature, and man's Gulli- 
1 bility not his worst blessing. Suppose your sinews of war 

* quite broken ; I mean your military chest insolvent, forage all 

* but exhausted ; and that the whole army is about to mutiny, 
' disband, and cut your and each other's throat, — then were it 

* not well could you, as if by miracle, pay them in any sort of 
' fairy-money, feed them on coagulated water, or mere imagina- 

* tion of meat ; whereby, till the real supply came up, they might 
' be kept together and quiet ? Such perhaps was the aim of 
' Nature, who does nothing without aim, in furnishing her fa- 
' vourite, Man, with this his so omnipotent or rather omnipatient 

* Talent of being Gulled. 

1 How beautifully it works, with a little mechanism ; nay, 



78 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

' almost makes mechanism for itself ! These Professors in the 

* Nameless lived with ease, with safety, by a mere Reputation, 
1 constructed in past times, and then too with no great effort, 
1 by quite another class of persons. Which Reputation, like a 
' strong, brisk-going undershot wheel, sunk into the general cur- 

* rent, bade fair, with only a little annual repainting on their 
' part, to hold long together, and of its own accord assiduously 
' grind for them. Happy that it was so, for the Millers ! They 
? themselves needed not to work ; their attempts at working, at 
% what they called Educating, now when I look back on it, fill 
1 me with a certain mute admiration. 

1 Besides all this, we boasted ourselves a Rational University ; 
1 in the highest degree hostile to Mysticism ; thus was the young 
' vacant mind furnished with much talk about Progress of the 
! Species, Dark Ages, Prejudice, and the like ; so that all were 

* quickly enough blown out into a state of windy argumentative- 
' ness ; whereby the better sort had soon to end in sick, impo- 
\ tent Scepticism; the worser sort explode (crepircn) in finished 
1 Self-conceit, and to all spiritual intents become dead. — But 
1 this too is portion of mankind's lot. If our era is the Era of 
i Unbelief, why murmur under it ; is there not a better coming, 
' nay come ? As in long-drawn systole and long-drawn diastole, 
1 must the period of Faith alternate with the period of Denial ; 
1 must the vernal growth, the summer luxuriance of all Opinions, 
1 Spiritual Representations and Creations, be followed by, and 
« again follow, the autumnal decay, the winter dissolution. For 
1 man lives in Time, has his whole earthly being, endeavour and 

* destiny shaped for him by Time : only in the transitory Time- 
« Symbol is the ever-motionless Eternity we stand on made mani- 
' fest. And yet, in such winter-seasons of Denial, it is for the 

* nobler-minded perhaps a comparative misery to have been born, 
? and to be awake and work ; and for the duller a felicity, if, like 
1 hibernating animals, safe-lodged in some Salamanca University, 
' or Sybaris City, or other superstitious or voluptuous Castle of 
1 Indolence, they can slumber-through, in stupid dreams, and 
' only awaken when the loud-roaring hailstorms have all done 

* their work, and to our prayers and martyrdoms the new Spring 
'* has been vouchsafed.' 

That in the environment, here mysteriously enough shadowed 
forth, Teufelsdrockh must have felt ill at ease, cannot be doubt- 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 79 

ful. 'The hungry young,' he says, 'looked up to their spiritual 
i Nurses ; and, for food, were bidden eat the east-wind. What 
' vain jargon of controversial Metaphysic, Etymology, and me- 
' chanical Manipulation falsely named Science, was current there, 
t I indeed learned, better perhaps than the most. Among eleven- 
' hundred Christian youths, there will not be wanting some eleven 
' eager to learn. By collision with such, a certain warmth, a 
' certain polish was communicated; by instinct and happy acci- 
5 dent, I took less to rioting (renommiren), than to thinking and 
' reading, which latter also I was free to do. Nay from the 
' chaos of that Library, I succeeded in fishing-up more books 
' perhaps than had been known to the very keepers thereof. 
' The foundation of a Literary Life was hereby laid : I learned, 
4 on my own strength, to read fluently in almost all cultivated 
' languages, on almost all subjects and sciences ; farther, as man 
i is ever the prime object to man, already it was my favourite 
' employment to read character in speculation, and from the 
' Writing to construe the Writer. A certain groundplan of Hu- 
' man Nature and Life began to fashion itself in me ; wondrous 
1 enough, now when I look back on it ; for my whole Universe, 
' physical and spiritual, was as yet a Machine ! However, such 
' a conscious, recognised groundplan, the truest I had, was be- 
' ginning to be there, and by additional experiments might be 
1 corrected and indefinitely extended.' 

Thus from poverty does the strong educe nobler wealth ; 
thus in the destitution of the wild desert does our young Ish- 
mael acquire for himself the highest of all possessions, that of 
Self-help. Nevertheless a desert this was, waste, and howling 
with savage monsters. Teufelsdrockh gives us long details of 
his 'fever-paroxysms of Doubt ;' his Inquiries concerning Mi- 
racles, and the Evidences of religious Faith ; and how ' in the 
' silent night-watches, still darker in his heart than over sky 
' and earth, he has cast himself before the All-seeing, and with 
' audible prayers cried vehemently for Light, for deliverance 
' from Death and the Grave. Not till after long years, and un- 
1 speakable agonies, did the believing heart surrender; sink into 
' spell-bound sleep, under the nightmare, Unbelief; and, in this 
' hag-ridden dream, mistake God's fair living world for a pallid, 
' vacant Hades and extinct Pandemonium. But through such 
' Purgatory pain,' continues he, ' it is appointed us to pass ; first 



8o SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

must the dead Letter of Religion own itself dead, and drop 
' piecemeal into dust, if the living Spirit of Religion, freed from 
' this its charnel-house, is to arise on us, newborn of Heaven, 
' and with new healing under its wings.' 

To which Purgatory pains, seemingly severe enough, if we 
add a liberal measure of Earthly distresses, want of practical 
guidance, want of sympathy, want of money, want of hope ; and 
all this in the fervid season of youth, so exaggerated in imagin- 
ing, so boundless in desires, yet here so poor in means, — do we 
not see a strong incipient spirit oppressed and overloaded from 
without and from within ; the fire of genius struggling-up among 
fuel-wood of the greenest, and as yet with more of bitter vapour 
than of clear flame ? 

From various fragments of Letters and other documentary 
scraps, it is to be inferred that Teufelsdrockh, isolated, shy, re- 
tiring as he was, had not altogether escaped notice : certain 
established men are aware of his existence ; and, if stretching- 
out no helpful hand, have at least their eyes on him. He ap- 
pears, though in dreary enough humour, to be addressing himself 
to the Profession of Law ; — whereof, indeed, the world has since 
seen him a public graduate. But omitting these broken, un- 
satisfactory thrums of Economical relation, let us present rathei 
the following small thread of Moral relation ; and therewith, the 
reader for himself weaving it in at the right place, conclude our 
dim arras-picture of these University years. 

' Here, also it was that I formed acquaintance with Herr 
' Towgood, or, as it is perhaps better written, Herr Toughgut; a 
' young person of quality {von Adel), from the interior parts of 

• England. He stood connected, by blood and hospitality, with 
1 the Counts von Zahdarm, in this quarter of Germany ; to which 

* noble Family I likewise was, by his means, with all friendli- 

■ ness, brought near. Towgood had a fair talent, unspeakably 
' ill -cultivated ; with considerable humour of character : and, 
« bating his total ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing 
1 and a little Grammar, showed less of that aristocratic impas- 
' sivity, and silent fuiy, than for most part belongs to Travellers 

■ of his nation. To him I owe my first practical knowledge of 
' the English and their ways ; perhaps also something of the 

• partiality with which I have ever since regarded that singular 

* people. Towgood was not without an eye, could he have 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 81 

' come at any light. Invited doubtless by the presence of the 

* Zahdarm Family, he had travelled hither, in the almost frantic 
1 hope of perfecting his studies ; he, whose studies had as yet 
' been those of infancy, hither to a University where so much 
' as the notion of perfection, not to say the effort after it, no 

* longer existed ! Often we would condole over the hard destiny 
1 of the Young in this era : how, after all our toil, we were to be 

* turned-out into the world, with beards on our chins indeed, but 
' with few other attributes of manhood ; no existing thing that 
1 we were trained to Act on, nothing that we could so much as 

* Believe. "How has our head on the outside a polished Hat," 
'would Towgood exclaim, "and in the inside Vacancy, or a 
' froth of Vocables and Attorney-Logic ! At a small cost men 
1 are educated to make leather into shoes ; but at a great cost, 
1 what am I educated to make ? By Heaven, Brother ! what I 

* have already eaten and worn, as I came thus far, would endow 
'a considerable Hospital of Incurables." — "Man, indeed," I 
' would answer, "has a Digestive Faculty, which must be kept 
1 working, were it even partly by stealth. But as for our Mis- 
1 education, make not bad worse ; waste not the time yet ours, 
1 in trampling on thistles because they have yielded us no figs. 
1 Frisch zu> Bruder! Here are Books, and we have brains to 
' read them ; here is a whole Earth and a whole Heaven, and 
1 we have eyes to look on them : Frisch zu /" 

1 Often also our talk was gay ; not without brilliancy, and 
1 even fire. We looked-out on Life, with its strange scaffolding, 

* where all at once harlequins dance, and men are beheaded 
1 and quartered : motley, not unterrific was the aspect ; but we 

* looked on it like brave youths. For myself, these were per- 
' haps my most genial hours. Towards this young warmhearted, 
1 strongheaded and wrongheaded Herr Towgood I was even near 
1 experiencing the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship. Yes, 
1 foolish Heathen that I was, I felt that, under certain conditions, 
■ I could have loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and 
' been his brother once and always. By degrees, however, I un- 
1 derstood the new time, and its wants. If man's Soidvs, indeed, 
1 as in the Finnish Language, and Utilitarian Philosophy, a kind 
1 of Stomach, what else is the true meaning of Spiritual Union 
1 but an Eating together ? Thus we, instead of Friends, are Din- 

* ner-guests ; and here as elsewhere have cast away chimeras.' 

G 



§2 SARTOR RESARTUS. book il. 

So ends, abruptly as is usual, and enigmatically, this little 
incipient romance. What henceforth becomes of the brave Herr 
Towgood, or Toughgut ? He has dived-under, in the Autobio- 
graphical Chaos, and swims we see not where. Does any reader 
4 in the interior parts of England' know of such a man ? 



CHAPTER IV. 

GETTING UNDER WAY. 

*Thus nevertheless,' writes our Autobiographer, apparently 
as quitting College, 'was there realised Somewhat; namely, I, 
4 Diogenes Teufelsdrockh : a visible Temporary Figure (Zeit- 
* bild), occupying some cubic feet of Space, and containing 
1 within it Forces both physical and spiritual ; hopes, passions, 
' thoughts ; the whole wondrous furniture, in more or less per- 
4 fection, belonging to that mystery, a Man. Capabilities there 
1 were in me to give battle, in some small degree, against the 
4 great Empire of Darkness : does not the very Ditcher and 
4 D elver, with his spade, extinguish many a thistle and puddle ; 
' and so leave a little Order, where he found the opposite? Nay 
1 your very Daymoth has capabilities in this kind ; and ever 
1 organises something (into its own B^dy, if no otherwise), which 
1 was before Inorganic ; and of mute dead air makes living mu- 
4 sic, though only of the faintest, by humming. 

1 How much more, one whose capabilities are spiritual ; who 
1 has learned, or begun learning, the grand thaumaturgic art of 
' Thought ! Thaumaturgic I name it ; for hitherto all Miracles 
1 have been wrought thereby, and henceforth innumerable will 
1 be wrought ; whereof we, even in these days, witness some. 
4 Of the Poet's and Prophet's inspired Message, and how it 
4 makes and unmakes whole worlds, I shall forbear mention : 
4 but cannct the dullest hear Steam-engines clanking around 
4 him ? Has he not seen the Scottish Brassmith's Idea (and 
4 this but a mechanical one) travelling on fire-wings round the 
4 Cape, and across two Oceans ; and stronger than any other 
4 Enchanter's Familiar, on all hands unweariedly fetching and 
4 carrying : at home, not only weaving Cloth ; but rapidly 
' enough overturning the whole old system of Society ; and, for 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 33 

* Feudalism and Preservation of the Game, preparing us, by in- 

* direct but sure methods, Industrialism and the Government of 

* the Wisest ? Truly a Thinking Man is the worst enemy the 
1 Prince of Darkness can have ; every time such a one announces 
' himself, I doubt not, there runs a shudder through the Nether 
' Empire ; and new Emissaries are trained, with new tactics, to, 
1 if possible, entrap him, and hoodwink and handcuff him. 

' With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of the Uni- 
' verse, been called. Unhappy it is, however, that though born 
' to the amplest Sovereignty, in this way, with no less than sove- 
f reign right of Peace and War against the Time-Prince {Zeit- 
f fiirst), or Devil, and all his Dominions, your coronation-cere- 

* mony costs such trouble, your sceptre is so difficult to get at, 
4 or even to get eye on !' 

By which last wiredrawn similitude does Teufelsdrockh mean 
no more than that young men find obstacles in what we call 
' getting under way'? 'Not what I Have,' continues he, 'but 

* what I Do is my Kingdom. To each is given a certain inward 

* Talent, a certain outward Environment of Fortune ; to each, 
1 by wisest combination of these two, a certain maximum of Ca- 

* pability. But the hardest problem were ever this first : To find 

* by study of yourself, and of the ground you stand on, what your 
1 combined inward and outward Capability specially is. For, 
' alas, our young soul is all budding with Capabilities, and we 
' see not yet which is the main and true one. Always too the 
' new man is in a new time, under new conditions ; his course 
' can be the facsimile of no prior one, but is by its nature 

* original. And then how seldom will the outward Capability 
' lit the inward : though talented wonderfully enough, we are 

* poor, unfriended, dyspeptical, bashful ; nay what is worse than 
' all, we are foolish. Thus, in a whole imbroglio of Capabili- 

* ties, we go stupidly groping about, to grope which is ours, and 
' often clutch the wrong one : in this mad work must several 
1 years of our small term be spent, till the purblind Youth, by 

* practice, acquire notions of distance, and become a seeing 

* Man. Nay, many so spend their whole term, and in ever- 

* new expectation, ever-new disappointment, shift from enter- 

* prise to enterprise, and from side to side : till at length, as 

* exasperated striplings of threescore -and -ten, they shift into 
f their last enterprise, that of getting buried. 



84 SARTOR RESARTUS. book h. 

■ Such, since the most of us are too ophthalmic, would be 
' the general fate ; were it not that one thing saves us : our 
1 Hunger. For on this ground, as the prompt nature of Hunger 

* is well known, must a prompt choice be made : hence have 
1 we, with wise foresight, Indentures and Apprenticeships for 
' our irrational young ; whereby, in due season, the vague uni- 
' versality of a Man shall find himself ready-moulded into a 

* specific Craftsman ; and so thenceforth work, with much or 
' with little waste of Capability as it may be ; yet not with the 
' worst waste, that of time. Nay even in matters spiritual, since 
1 the spiritual artist too is born blind, and does not, like certain 
1 other creatures, receive sight in nine days, but far later, some- 
1 times never, — is it not well that there should be what we call 
1 Professions, or Bread-studies (Brodzwecke), preappointed us ? 
4 Here, circling like the gin -horse, for whom partial or total 
1 blindness is no evil, the Bread-artist can travel contentedly 
1 round and round, still fancying that it is forward and forward ; 
' and realise much : for himself victual ; for the world an addi- 
' tional horse's power in the grand corn-mill or hemp-mill of 
1 Economic Society. For me too had such a leading-string been 
' provided ; only that it proved a neck -halter, and had nigh 
1 throttled me, till I broke it off. Then, in the words of Ancient 
' Pistol, did the world generally become mine oyster, which I, 
' by strength or cunning, was to open, as I would and could. 

* Almost had I deceased {fast war ich tungekommen), so ob- 
1 stinately did it continue shut.' 

We see here, significantly foreshadowed, the spirit of much 
that was to befall our Autobiographer ; the historical embodi- 
ment of which, as it painfully takes shape in his Life, lies scat- 
tered, in dim disastrous details, through this Bag Pisces, and 
those that follow. A young man of high talent, and high though 
still temper, like a young mettled colt, 'breaks -off his neck- 
halter,' and bounds forth, from his peculiar manger, into the 
wide world ; which, alas, he finds all rigorously fenced-in. Rich- 
est clover-fields tempt his eye ; but to him they are forbidden 
pasture : either pining in progressive starvation, he must stand ; 
or, in mad exasperation, must rush to and fro, leaping against 
sheer stone-walls, which he cannot leap over, which only lacerate 
and lame him ; till at last, after thousand attempts and endur- 
ances, he, as if by miracle, clears his way ; not indeed into 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 85 

luxuriant and luxurious clover, yet into a certain bosky wilder- 
ness where existence is still possible, and Freedom, though 
waited on by Scarcity, is not without sweetness. In a word, 
Teufelsdrockh having thrown-up his legal Profession, finds him- 
self without landmark of outward guidance ; whereby his pre- 
vious want of decided Belief, or inward guidance, is frightfully 
aggravated. Necessity urges him on ; Time will not stop, neither 
can he, a Son of Time ; wild passions without solacement, wild 
faculties without employment, ever vex and agitate him. He too 
must enact that stern Monodrama, No Object and no Restj 
must front its successive destinies, work through to its cata- 
strophe, and deduce therefrom what moral he can. 

Yet let us be just to him, let us admit that his ' neck-halter' 
sat nowise easy on him ; that he was in some degree forced to 
break it off. If we look at the young man's civic position, in 
this Nameless capital, as he emerges from its Nameless Uni- 
versity, we can discern well that it was far from enviable. His 
first Law-Examination he has come through triumphantly ; and 
can even boast that the Examen Rigorosum need not have 
frightened him : but though he is hereby 'an Auscultator of re- 
spectability,' what avails it? There is next to no employment 
to be had. Neither, for a youth without connexions, is the pro- 
cess of Expectation very hopeful in itself; nor for one of his 
disposition much cheered from without. ' My fellow Ausculta- 
' tors,' he says, 'were Auscultators : they dressed, and digested, 
' and talked articulate words ; other vitality showed they almost 
1 none. Small speculation in those eyes, that they did glare 
1 withal ! Sense neither for the high nor for the deep, nor for 
1 aught human or divine, save only for the faintest scent of 
1 coming Preferment.' In which words, indicating a total es- 
trangement on the part of Teufelsdrockh, may there not also 
lurk traces of a bitterness as from wounded vanity ? Doubtless 
these prosaic Auscultators may have sniffed at him, with his 
strange ways ;' and tried to hate, and what was much more im- 
possible, to despise him. Friendly communion, in any case, there 
could not be : already has the young Teufelsdrockh left the other 
young geese ; and swims apart, though as yet uncertain whether 
he himself is cygnet or gosling. 

Perhaps, too, what little employment he had was performed 
ill, at best unpleasantly. 'Great practical method and expert- 
ness' he may brag of ; but is there not also great practical pride, 



S6 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

though deep-hidden, only the deeper-seated ? So shy a man can 
never have been popular. We figure to ourselves, how in those 
days he may have played strange freaks with his independence, 
and so forth : do not his own words betoken as much ? • Like 

* p„ very young person, I imagined it was with Work alone, and 
1 not also with Folly and Sin, in myself and others, that I had 
' been appointed to struggle.' Be this as it may, his progress 
from the passive Auscultatorship, towards any active Assessor- 
ship, is evidently of the slowest. By degrees, those same esta- 
blished men, once partially inclined to patronise him, seem to 
withdraw their countenance, and give him up as 'a man of ge- 
nius :' against which procedure he, in these Papers, loudly pro- 
tests. 'As if,' says he, 'the higher did not presuppose the 
1 lower ; as if he who can fly into heaven, could not also walk 
' post if he resolved on it ! But the world is an old woman, and 
' mistakes any gilt farthing for a gold coin ; whereby being 

* often cheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing but the corh- 
' mon copper.' 

How our winged sky-messenger, unaccepted as a terrestrial 
runner, contrived, in the mean while, to keep himself from fly- 
ing skyward without return, is not too clear from these Docu- 
ments. Good old Gretchen seems to have vanished from the 
scene, perhaps from the Earth ; other Horn of Plenty, or even 
of Parsimony, nowhere flows for him ; so that ' the prompt na- 
ture of Hunger being well known,' we are not without our anxiety. 
From private Tuition, in never so many languages and sciences, 
the aid derivable is small ; neither, to use his own words, 'does 
' the young Adventurer hitherto suspect in himself any literary 
' gift ; but at best earns bread-and-water wages, by his wide 
'faculty of Translation. Nevertheless,' continues he, 'that I 
' subsisted is clear, for you find me even now alive.' Which 
fact, however, except upon the principle of our true-hearted, kind 
old Proverb, that 'there is always life for a living one,' we must 
profess ourselves unable to explain. 

Certain Landlords' Bills, and other economic Documents, 
bearing the mark of Settlement, indicate that he was not with- 
out money; but, like an independent Hearth-holder, if not House- 
holder, paid his way. Here also occur, among many others, two 
little mutilated Notes, which perhaps throw light on his condi- 
tion. The first has now no date, or writer's name, but a huge 
Blot ; and runs to this effect : ' The {Inkblot), tied-down by 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 87 

* previous promise, cannot, except by best wishes, forward the 
1 Herr Teufelsdrockh' s views on the Assessorship in question ; 
' and sees himself under the cruel necessity of forbearing, for 
' the present, what were otherwise his duty and joy, to assist in 

* opening the career for a man of genius, on whom far higher 
' triumphs are yet waiting.' The other is on gilt paper ; and 
interests us like a sort of epistolary mummy now dead, yet 
which once lived and beneficently worked. We give it in the 
original : ' Herr Teufelsdrockh wird von der Frait Grafinn, auf 

* Donnerstag y zum ^Esthetischen Thee sphonstens eingeladen* 

Thus, in answer to a cry for solid pudding, whereof there is 
the most urgent need, comes, epigrammatically enough, the in- 
vitation to a wash of quite fluid JEsthetic Tea / How Teufels- 
drockh, now at actual handgrips with Destiny herself, may have 
comported himself among these Musical and Literary Dilettanti 
of both sexes, like a hungry lion invited to a feast of chicken- 
weed, we can only conjecture. Perhaps in expressive silence, 
and abstinence : otherwise if the lion, in such case, is to feast 
at all, it cannot be on the chickenweed, but only on the chickens. 
For the rest, as this Frau Grahnn dates from the Zahdarm 
House, she can be no other than the Countess and mistress of 
the same ; whose intellectual tendencies, and good-will to Teu- 
felsdrockh, whether on the footing of Herr Towgood, or on his 
own footing, are hereby manifest. That some sort of relation, 
indeed, continued, for a time, to connect our Autobiographer, 
though perhaps feebly enough, with this noble House, we have 
elsewhere express evidence. Doubtless, if he expected patron- 
age, it was in vain ; enough for him if he here obtained occa- 
sional glimpses of the great world, from which we at one time 
fancied him to have been always excluded. 'The Zahdarms,' 
says he, ' lived in the soft, sumptuous garniture of Aristocracy ; 
1 whereto Literature and Art, attracted and attached from with- 
' out, were to serve as the handsomest fringing. It was to the 
' Gnadigen Frau (her Ladyship) that this latter improvement 
1 was due : assiduously she gathered, dextrously she fitted-on, 
' what fringing was to be had ; lace or cobweb, as the place 
1 yielded.' Was Teufelsdrockh also a fringe, of lace or cobweb ; 
or promising to be such ? ' With his Excellcnz (the Count),' con- 
tinues he, ■ I have more than once- had the honour to converse ; 
1 chiefly on .general affairs, and the aspect of the world, which 

* he, though now past middle life, viewed in no unfavourable 



88 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

1 light ; finding indeed, except the Outrooting of Journalism {die 
' auszurottende yournatistik), little to desiderate therein. On 
' some points, as his Excellenz was not uncholeric, I found it 
' more pleasant to keep silence. Besides, his occupation being 
' that of Owning Land, there might be faculties enough, which, 
' as superfluous for such use, were little developed in him.' 

That to Teufelsdrockh the aspect of the world was nowise 
so faultless, and many things besides ' the Outrooting of Jour- 
nalism' might have seemed improvements, we can readily con- 
jecture. With nothing but a barren Auscultatorship from without, 
and so many mutinous thoughts and wishes from within, his 
position was no easy one. 'The Universe,' he says, 'was as a 

* mighty Sphinx-riddle, which I knew so little of, yet must rede, 
' or be devoured. In red streaks of unspeakable grandeur, yet 
' also in the blackness of darkness, was Life, to my too-unfur- 
4 nished Thought, unfolding itself. A strange contradiction lay 

* in me ; and I as yet knew net the solution of it ; knew not 

* that spiritual music can spring only from discords set in har- 

* mony ; that but for Evil there were no Good, as victory is only 
' possible by battle.' 

*' I have heard amrmed (surely in jest),' observes he else- 
where, ' by not unphilanthropic persons, that it were a real in- 
' crease of human happiness, could all young men from the age 
1 of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise 
■ invisible ; and there left to follow their lawful studies and call- 
1 ings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty- 
' five. With which suggestion, at least as considered in the light 
' of a practical scheme, I need scarcely say that I nowise coin- 
' cide. Nevertheless it is plausibly urged that, as young ladies 
' {Madchen) are, to mankind, precisely the most delightful in 
1 those years ; so young gentlemen (Bilbchen) do then attain 
' their maximum of detestability. Such gawks (Gecken) are they, 
' and foolish peacocks, and yet with such a vulturous hunger for 
1 self-indulgence ; so obstinate, obstreperous, vain-glorious ; in 
' all senses, so froward and so forward. No mortal's endeavour 
' or attainment will, in the smallest, content the as yet unen- 

* deavouring, unattaining young gentleman ; but he could make 
' it all infinitely better, were it worthy of him. Life everywhere 
' is the most manageable matter, simple as a question in the 
' Rule-of-Three : multiply your second and third term together, 

* divide the product by the first, and your quotient will be the 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 89 

' answer, — which you are but an ass if you cannot come at. 
' The booby has not yet found-out, by any trial, that, do what one 

• will, there is ever a cursed fraction, oftenest a decimal repeater, 

• and no net integer quotient so much as to be thought of/ 

In which passage does not there lie an implied confession 
that Teufelsdrockh himself, besides his outward obstructions, had 
an inward, still greater, to contend with ; namely, a certain tem- 
porary, youthful, yet still afflictive derangement of head ? Alas, 
on the former side alone, his case was hard enough. ■ It con- 
1 tinues ever true,' says he, 'that Saturn, or Chronos, or what 
' we call Time, devours all his Children : only by incessant Run- 
' ning, by incessant Working, may you (for some threescore- 
' and-ten years) escape him ; and you too he devours at last. 
' Can any Sovereign, or Holy Alliance of Sovereigns, bid Time 
' stand still ; even in thought, shake themselves free of Time ? 

* Our whole terrestrial being is based on Time, and built of 
' Time ; it is wholly a Movement, a Time-impulse ; Time is the 
' author of it, the material of it. Hence also our Whole Duty, 

* which is to move, to work, — in the right direction. Are not 
1 our Bodies and our Souls in continual movement, whether we 
' will or not ; in a continual Waste, requiring a continual Re- 
' pair ? Utmost satisfaction of our whole outward and inward 
' Wants were but satisfaction for a space of Time; thus, whatso 
■ we have done, is done, and for us annihilated, and ever must 

* we go and do anew. O Time-Spirit, how hast thou environed 

• and imprisoned us, and sunk us so deep in thy troublous dim 
' Time-Element, that only in lucid moments can so much as 
' glimpses of our upper Azure Home be revealed to us ! Me, 
1 however, as a Son of Time, unhappier than some others, was 
' Time threatening to eat quite prematurely ; for, strive as I 
' might, there was no good Running, so obstructed was the path, 
' so gyved were the feet/ That is to say, we presume, speak- 
ing in the dialect of this lower world, that Teufelsdrockh' s whole 
duty and necessity was, like other men's, ' to work, — in the right 
direction,' and that no work was to be had; whereby he became 
wretched enough. As was natural : with haggard Scarcity threat- 
ening him in the distance ; and so vehement a soul languishing 
in restless inaction, and forced thereby, like Sir Hudibras's sword 
by rust, To eat into itselfj for lack 

Ot something else to hew and hack I 



90 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

But on the whole, that same 'excellent Passivity,' as it has 
all along done, is here again vigorously flourishing ; in which 
circumstance may we not trace the beginnings of much that 
now characterises our Professor ; and perhaps, in faint rudi- 
ments, the origin of the Clothes-Philosophy itself? Already the 
attitude he has assumed towards the World is too defensive ; 
not, as would have been desirable, a bold attitude of attack. 
' So far hitherto,' he says, 'as I had mingled with mankind, I 
1 was notable, if for anything, for a certain stillness of manner, 
1 which, as my friends often rebukingly declared, did but ill ex- 
1 press the keen ardour of my feelings. I, in truth, regarded 
1 men with an excess both of love and of fear. The mystery of 
1 a Person, indeed, is ever divine to him that has a sense for 
' the Godlike. Often, notwithstanding, was I blamed, and by 
' half-strangers hated, for my so-called Hardness (Hdrte), my 
1 Indifferentism towards men ; and the seemingly ironic tone I 
1 had adopted, as my favourite dialect in conversation. Alas, 
1 the panoply of Sarcasm was but as a buckram case, wherein 

* I had striven to envelope myself ; that so my own poor Person 
' might live safe there, and in all friendliness, being no longer 
' exasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, 
' the language of the Devil ; for which reason I have long since 
1 as good as renounced it. But how many individuals did I, in 
' those days, provoke into some degree of hostility thereby ! An 
' ironic man, with his sly stillness, and ambuscading ways, more 

* especially an ironic young man, from whom it is least expected, 

■ may be viewed as a pest to society. Have we not seen per- 

* sons of weight and name coming forward, with gentlest irt- 
1 difference, to tread such a one out of sight, as an insignificancy 

■ and worm, start ceiling-high (balkenhoch), and thence fall shat- 
1 tered and supine, to be borne home on shutters, not without 
' indignation, when he proved electric and a torpedo !' 

Alas, how can a man with this devilishness of temper make 
way for himself in Life ; where the first problem, as Teufels- 
drockh too admits, is ' to unite yourself with some one and with 
somewhat {sick anzuschliesseny ? Division, not union, is written 
on most part of his procedure. Let us add too that, in no great 
length of time, the only important connexion he had ever suc- 
ceeded in forming, his connexion with the Zahdarm Family, 
seems to have been paralysed, ior all practical uses, by the 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 92 

death of the ' not un choleric' old Count. This fact stands re- 
corded, quite incidentally, in a certain Discourse on Epitaphs, 
huddled into the present Bag, among so much else ; of which 
Essay the learning and curious penetration are more to be ap- 
proved of than the spirit. His grand principle is, that lapidary 
inscriptions, of what sort soever, should be Historical rather than 
Lyrical. ' By request of that worthy Nobleman's survivors,' says 
he, ' I undertook to compose his Epitaph ; and not unmindful 
' of my own rules, produced the following ; which however, for 

* an alleged defect of Latinity, a defect never yet fully visible 

* to myself, still remains unengraven ;' — wherein, we may pre- 
dict, there is more than the Latinity that will surprise an Eng- 
lish reader : 

HTC JACET 
PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMINE MAGNUS, 

ZAEHDARMI COMES, 

EX IMPERII CONCILIO, 

VELLERIS AUREI, PERISCELIDIS, NECNON VULTURIS NIGRI 

EQUES. 

QUI DUM SUB LUNA AGEBAT, 

QUINQUIES MILLE PERDICES 

PLUMBO CONFECIT : 

VARII CIBI 

CENTUMPONDTA MILLIES CENTENA MILLIA, 

PER SE, PERQUE SERVOS QUADRUPEDES BIPEDESVE, 

HAUD SINE TUMULTU DEVOLVENS, 

IN STERCUS 

PALAM CONVERTIT. 

NUNC A LABORE REQUIESCENTEM 
OPERA SEQUUNTUR. 

SI MONUMENTUM QU^RIS, 
FIMETUM ADSPICE. 

PRIMUM IN ORBE DEJECIT \mh dato] \ POSTREMUM [sub dato\> 



92 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 



CHAPTER V. 

ROMANCE. 

'For long years,' writes Teufelsdrockh, 'had the poor He- 
4 brew, in this Egypt of an Auscultatorship, painfully toiled, 
1 baking bricks without stubble, before ever the question once 

* struck him with entire force: For what? — Beym Himniel ! 
4 For Food and Warmth ! And are Food and Warmth nowhere 
« else, in the whole wide Universe, discoverable ? — Come of it 
1 what might, I resolved to try.' 

Thus then are we to see him in a new independent capacity, 
though perhaps far from an improved one. Teufelsdrockh is 
now a man without Profession. Quitting the common Fleet of 
herring-busses and whalers, where indeed his leeward, laggard 
condition was painful enough, he desperately steers off, on a 
course of his own, by sextant and compass of his own. Un- 
happy Teufelsdrockh ! Though neither Fleet, nor Traffic, nor 
Commodores pleased thee, still was it not a Fleet, sailing in 
prescribed track, for fixed objects ; above all, in combination, 
wherein, by mutual guidance, by all manner of loans and bor- 
rowings, each could manifoldly aid the other ? How wilt thou 
sail in unknown seas ; and for thyself find that shorter North- 
west Passage to thy fair Spice-country of a Nowhere ? — A soli- 
tary rover, on such a voyage, with such nautical tactics, will 
meet with adventures. Nay, as we forthwith discover, a certain 
Calypso-Island detains him at the very outset ; and as it were 
falsifies and oversets his whole reckoning. 

'If in youth,' writes he once, 'the Universe is majestically 
' unveiling, and everywhere Heaven revealing itself on Earth, 

* nowhere to the Young Man does this Heaven on Earth so im- 
' mediately reveal itself as in the Young Maiden. Strangely 

* enough, in this strange life of ours, it has been so appointed. 
■ On the whole, as I have often said, a Person (Personlichkeif) 

* is ever holy to us ; a certain orthodox Anthropomorphism con- 

* nects my Me with all Thees in bonds of Love : but it is in this 

* approximation of the Like and Unlike, that such heavenly at- 
' traction, as between Negative and Positive, first burns-out into 

* a flame. Is the pitifullest mortal Person, think you, indiffer- 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 93 

' ent to us ? Is it not rather our heartfelt wish to be made one 

* with him ; to unite him to us, by gratitude, by admiration, 
1 even by fear ; or failing all these, unite ourselves to him ? But 
1 how much more, in this case of the Like-Unlike ! Here is 
' conceded us the higher mystic possibility of such a union, the 
4 highest in our Earth ; thus, in the conducting medium of Fan- 
4 tasy, flames-forth that ^^-development of the universal Spiri- 
' tual Electricity, which, as unfolded between man and woman, 

* we first emphatically denominate Love. 

* In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there 
' already blooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by 
1 some fairest Eve ; nor, in the stately vistas, and flowerage and 
1 foliage of that Garden, is a Tree of Knowledge, beautiful and 
' awful in the midst thereof, wanting. Perhaps too the whole 
4 is but the lovelier, if Cherubim and a Flaming Sword divide 
' it from all footsteps of men ; and grant him, the imaginative 
' stripling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season of 
1 virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable celestial 
1 barrier ; and the sacred air-cities of Hope have not shrunk into 
1 the mean clay-hamlets cf Reality ; and man, by his nature, is 
4 yet infinite and free ! 

'As for our young Forlorn,' continues Teufelsdrockh, evid- 
ently meaning himself, * in his secluded way of life, and with 
' his glowing Fantasy, the more fiery that it burnt under cover, 
' as in a reverberating furnace, his feeling towards the Queens 
4 of this Earth was, and indeed is, altogether unspeakable. A 
4 visible Divinity dwelt in them ; to our young Friend all wo- 
1 men were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw them flit- 
1 ting past, in their many-coloured angel-plumage ; or hovering 
1 mute and inaccessible on the outskirts of ^Esthetic Tea : all 
' of air they were, all Soul and Form ; so lovely, like mysteri- 
' ous priestesses, in whose hand was the invisible Jacob's-ladder, 
' whereby man might mount into very Heaven. That he, our 

* poor Friend, should ever win for himself one of these Grace- 
4 fuls (Holden) — Ach Gott ! how could he hope it ; should he 
■ not have died under it ? There was a certain delirious vertigo 
' in the thought. 

' Thus was the young man, if all-sceptical of Demons and 
' Angels such as the vulgar had once believed in, nevertheless 
4 not un visited by hosts of true Sky-born, who visibly and audibly 



94 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

* hovered round him wheresoever he went ; and they had that 
1 religious worship in his thought, though as yet it was by their 
1 mere earthly and trivial name that he named them. But now, 
' if on a soul so circumstanced, some actual Air-maiden, incor- 

* porated into tangibility and reality, should cast any electric 
'glance of kind eyes, saying thereby, "Thou too mayest love 
' and be loved;" and so kindle him, — good Heaven, what a 
1 volcanic, earthquake-bringing, all-consuming fire were probably 
1 kindled !' 

Such a fire, it afterwards appears, did actually burst-forth, 
with explosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner man of Hen- 
Diogenes ; as indeed how could it fail ? A nature, which, in 
his own figurative style, we might say, had now not a little car- 
bonised tinder, of Irritability ; with so much nitre of latent Pas- 
sion, and sulphurous Humour enough ; the whole lying in such 
hot neighbourhood, close by ' a reverberating furnace of Fan- 
tasy :' have we not here the components of driest Gunpowder, 
ready, on occasion of the smallest spark, to blaze-up ? Neither, 
in this our Life-element, are sparks anywhere wanting. Without 
doubt, some Angel, whereof so many hovered round, would one 
day, leaving 'the outskirts of JEsthetic Tea,' flit nigher ; and, 
by electric Promethean glance, kindle no despicable firework. 
Happy, if it indeed proved a Firework, and flamed-off rocket- 
wise, in successive beautiful bursts of splendour, each growing 
naturally from the other, through the several stages of a happy 
Youthful Love ; till the whole were safely burnt-out ; and the 
young soul relieved with little damage ! Happy, if it did not 
rather prove a Conflagration and mad Explosion ; painfully la- 
cerating the heart itself; nay perhaps bursting the heart in 
pieces (which were Death) ; or at best, bursting the thin walls 
of your 'reverberating furnace,' so that it rage thenceforth all 
unchecked among the contiguous combustibles (which were 
Madness) : till of the so fair and manifold internal world of 
our Diogenes, there remained Nothing, or only the ' crater of 
an extinct volcano P 

From multifarious Documents in this Bag Capricomus, and 
in the adjacent ones on both sides thereof, it becomes manifest 
that our philosopher, as stoical and cynical as he now looks, 
was heartily and even frantically in Love : here therefore may 
our old doubts whether his heart were of stone or of flesh give 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 95 

way. He loved once ; not wisely but too well. And once only : 
for as your Congreve needs a new case or wrappage for every 
new rocket, so each human heart can properly exhibit but one 
Love, if even one ; the ' First Love which is infinite' can be 
followed by no second like unto it. In more recent years, ac- 
cordingly, the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard Teu- 
felsdrockh as a man not only who would never wed, but who 
would never even flirt ; whom the grand-climacteric itself, and 
St. Martin's Summer of incipient Dotage, would crown with no 
new myrtle-garland. To the Professor, women are henceforth 
Pieces of Art ; of Celestial Art, indeed ; which celestial pieces 
he glories to survey in galleries, but has lost thought of pur- 
chasing. 

Psychological readers are not without curiosity to see how 
Teufelsdrockh, in this for him unexampled predicament, de- 
means himself; with what specialties of successive configura- 
tion, splendour and colour, his Firework blazes-orT. Small, as 
usual, is the satisfaction that such can meet with here. From 
amid these confused masses of Eulogy and Elegy, with their 
mad Petrarchan and Werterean ware lying madly scattered 
among all sorts of quite extraneous matter, not so much as the 
fair one's name can be deciphered. For, without doubt, the 
title Blumine, whereby she is here designated, and which means 
simply Goddess of Flowers, must be fictitious. Was her real 
name Flora, then ? But what was her surname, or had she 
none ? Of what station in Life was she ; of what parentage, 
fortune, aspect ? Specially, by what Preestablished Harmony 
of occurrences did the Lover and the Loved meet one another 
in so wide a world ; how did they behave in such meeting ? 
To all which questions, not unessential in a Biographic work, 
mere Conjecture must for most part return answer. ' It was 
' appointed,' says our Philosopher, 'that the high celestial orbit 
1 of Blumine should intersect the low sublunary one of our For- 
* lorn ; that he, looking in her empyrean eyes, should fancy 
' the upper Sphere of Light was come down into this nether 
4 sphere of Shadows ; and finding himself mistaken, make noise 
' enough.' 

We seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, beauti- 
ful, and some one's Cousin ; highborn, and of high spirit ; but 
unhappily dependent and insolvent ; living, perhaps, on the not 



96 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

too gracious bounty of moneyed relatives. But how came « the 
Wanderer* into her circle ? Was it by the humid vehicle of 
JEsthctic Tea, or by the arid one of mere Business ? Was it on 
the hand of Herr Towgood ; or of the Gnadige Frau, who, as 
an ornamental Artist, might sometimes like to promote flirta- 
tion, especially for young cynical Nondescripts ? To all ap- 
pearance, it was chiefly by Accident, and the grace of Nature. 

'Thou fair Waldschloss,' writes our Autobiographer, 'what 
' stranger ever saw thee, were it even an absolved Auscultator, 
' officially bearing in his pocket the last Relatio ex Actis he 
1 would ever write, but must have paused to wonder ! Noble 
' Mansion ! There stoodest thou, in deep Mountain Amphi- 
' theatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene solitude ; stately, 
' massive, all of granite ; glittering in the western sunbeams, like 
' a palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious metal. Beauti- 
1 ful rose up, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills; 
' of the greenest was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown 
' frets of crag, or spotted by some spreading solitary Tree and 
' its shadow. To the unconscious Wayfarer thou wert also as 
' an Ammon's Temple, in the Libyan Waste ; where, for joy and 
' woe, the tablet of his Destiny lay written. Well might he pause 
' and gaze ; in that glance of his were prophecy and nameless 
' forebodings.' 

But now let us conjecture that the so presentient Auscultator 
has handed-in his Relatio ex Actis j been invited to a glass of 
Rhine-wine ; and so, instead of returning dispirited and athirst 
to his dusty Town-home, is ushered into the Gardenhouse, where 
sit the choicest party of dames and cavaliers : if not engaged 
in ^Esthetic Tea, yet in trustful evening conversation, and per- 
haps Musical Coffee, for we hear of 'harps and pure voices 
making the stillness live.' Scarcely, it would seem, is the Gar- 
denhouse inferior in respectability to the noble Mansion itself. 
' Embowered amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the hues and 
' odours of thousand flowers, here sat that brave company ; in 
' front, from the wide-opened doors, fair outlook over blossom 
' and bush, over grove and velvet green, stretching, undulating 
' onwards to the remote Mountain peaks : so bright, so mild, 
' and everywhere the melody of birds and happy creatures : it 
1 was all as if man had stolen a shelter from the Sun in the 
1 bosom- vesture of Summer herself. How came it that the Wan- 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 97 

' derer advanced thither with such forecasting heart (ahndungs- 
■ voll), by the side of his gay host ? Did he feel that to these 
1 soft influences his hard bosom ought to be shut ; that here, once 
' more, Fate had it in view to try him ; to mock him, and see 
' whether there were Humour in him ? 

1 Next moment he finds himself presented to the party ; and 

* especially by name to — Blumine ! Peculiar among all dames 
1 and damosels glanced Blumine, there in her modesty, like a 

* star among earthly lights. Noblest maiden L whom he bent to, 
1 in body and in soul ; yet scarcely dared look at, for the pre- 
' sence filled him with painful yet sweetest embarrassment. 

4 Blumine's was a name well known to him ; far and wide 
' was the fair one heard of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices : 
' from all which vague colourings of Rumour, from the censures 
1 no less than from the praises, had our friend painted for him- 

* self a certain imperious Queen of Hearts, and blooming warm 
1 Earth -angel, much more enchanting than your mere white 
' Heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins circulates too 
' little naphtha-fire. Herself also he had seen in public places ; 
1 that light yet so stately form ; those dark tresses, shading a 
' face where smiles and sunlight played over earnest deeps : but 

* all this he had seen only as a magic vision, for him inacces- 
1 sible, almost without reality. Her sphere was too far from 
' his ; how should she ever think of him ; O Heaven ! how should 
1 they so much as once meet together ? And now that Rose- 
' goddess sits in the same circle with him ; the light of her eyes 
1 has smiled on him ; if he speak, she will hear it ! Nay, who 
1 knows, since the heavenly Sun looks into lowest valleys, but 
' Blumine herself might have aforetime noted the so unnotable ; 
1 perhaps, from his very gainsayers, as he had from hers, ga- 
1 thered wonder, gathered favour for him ? Was the attraction, 
' the agitation mutual, then ; pole and pole trembling towards 
' contact, when once brought into neighbourhood ? Say rather, 
1 heart swelling in presence of the Queen of Hearts ; like the 
1 Sea swelling when once near its Moon ! With the Wanderer 
1 it was even so : as in heavenward gravitation, suddenly as at 
1 the touch of a Seraph's wand, his whole soul is roused from 
' its deepest recesses ; and all that was painful and that was 

* blissful there, dim images, vague feelings of a whole Past and 
1 a whole Future, are heaving in unquiet eddies within him. 

H 



98 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

* Often, in far less agitating scenes, had our still Friend 
1 shrunk forcibly together ; and shrouded-up his tremors and 
' flutterings, of what sort soever, in a safe cover of Silence,' and 

* perhaps of seeming Stolidity. How was it, then, that here, 

* when trembling to the core of his heart, he did not sink into 

■ swoons, but rose into strength, into fearlessness and clearness? 

* It was his guiding Genius (-Damon) that inspired him ; he must 
' go forth and meet his Destiny. Show thyself now, whispered 

■ it, or be forever hid. Thus sometimes it is even when your 

* anxiety becomes transcendental, that the soul first feels herself 
' able to transcend it ; that she rises above it, in fiery victory ; 
' and borne on new-found wings of victory, moves so calmly, even 
' because so rapidly, so irresistibly. Always must the Wanderer 
' remember, with a certain satisfaction and surprise, how in this 
' case he sat not silent, but struck adroitly into the stream of 
' conversation ; which thenceforth, to speak with an apparent not 
' a real vanity, he may say that he continued to lead. Surely, 

* in those hours, a certain inspiration was imparted him, such 

■ inspiration as is still possible in our late era. The self-secluded 
1 unfolds himself in noble thoughts, in free, glowing words ; his 

* soul is as one sea of light, the peculiar home of Truth and 
1 Intellect ; wherein also Fantasy bodies-forth form after form, 
' radiant with all prismatic hues.' 

It appears, in this otherwise so happy meeting, there talked 
one ' Philistine ;' who even now, to the general weariness, was 
dominantly pouring-forth Philistinism [Philistriositdten) ; little 
witting what hero was here entering to demolish him ! We omit 
the series of Socratic, or rather Diogenic utterances, not unhappy 
in their way, whereby the monster, 'persuaded into silence,' seems 
soon after to have withdrawn for the night. \ Of which dialectic 
1 marauder,' writes our hero, 'the discomfiture was visibly felt as a 
' benefit by most : but what were all applauses to the glad smile, 
' threatening every moment to become a laugh, wherewith Blu- 
' mine herself repaid the victor ? He ventured to address her, 
' she answered with attention : nay what if there were a slight 
' tremor in that silver voice ; what if the red glow of evening 
' were hiding a transient blush ! 

' The conversation took a higher tone, one fine thought 

* called forth another : it was one of those rare seasons, when 

* the soul expands with full freedom, and man feels himself 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 99 

1 brought near to man. Gaily in light, graceful abandonment, 

■ the friendly talk played round that circle ; for the burden was 
' rolled from every heart ; the barriers of Ceremony, which are 
1 indeed the laws of polite living, had melted as into vapour ; 
' and the poor claims of Me and Thee, no longer parted by rigid 
' fences, now flowed softly into one another ; and Life lay all 
' harmonious, many-tinted, like some fair royal champaign, the 
1 sovereign and owner of which were Love only. Such music 
' springs from kind hearts, in a kind environment of place and 
1 time. And yet as the light grew more aerial on the mountain- 
' tops, and the shadows fell longer over the valley, some faint 
' tone of sadness may have breathed through the heart ; and, in 
' whispers more or less audible, reminded every one that as this 
1 bright day was drawing towards its close, so likewise must the 
' Day of Man's Existence decline into dust and darkness ; and 
1 with all its sick toilings, and joyful and mournful noises, sink 
' in the still Eternity. 

1 To our Friend the hours seemed moments ; holy was he 
1 and happy : the words from those sweetest lips came over him 

* like dew on thirsty grass ; all better feelings in his soul seemed 
1 to whisper, It is good for us to be here. At parting, the Blu- 

■ mine's hand was in his : in the balmy twilight, with the kind 

* stars above them, he spoke something of meeting again, which 
' was not contradicted ; he pressed gently those small soft fingers, 
' and it seemed as if they were not hastily, not angrily with- 
' drawn.' 

Poor Teufelsdrockh ! it is clear to demonstration thou art 
smit : the Queen of Hearts would see a * man of genius' also 
sigh for her ; and there, by art-magic, in that preternatural hour, 
has she bound and spell-bound thee. ' Love is not altogether a 

* Delirium,' says he elsewhere; 'yet has it many points in com- 
1 mon therewith. I call it rather a discerning of the Infinite in 
4 the Finite, of the Idea made Real ; which discerning again 
' may be either true or false, either seraphic or demoniac, In- 

* spiration or Insanity. But in the former case too, as in com- 
' mon Madness, it is Fantasy that superadds itself to sight ; on 
1 the so petty domain of the Actual plants its Archimedes-lever, 
« whereby to move at will the infinite Spiritual. Fantasy I might 

* call the true Heaven-gate and Hell-gate of man : his sensuous 
' life is but the small temporary stags (ZeilbUhne), whereon 



ioo ■ SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

1 thick-streaming influences from both these far yet near regions 

• meet visibly, and act tragedy and melodrama. Sense can sup- 
' port herself handsomely, in most countries, for some eighteen- 
1 pence a day ; but for Fantasy planets and solar-systems will not 
' suffice. Witness your Pyrrhus conquering the world, yet drink- 
4 ing no better red wine than he had before.' Alas ! witness also 
your Diogenes, flame-clad, scaling the upper Heaven, and verg- 
ing towards Insanity, for prize of a ' high-souled Brunette,' as 
if the earth held but one and not several of these ! 

He says that, in Town, they met again : 4 day after day, like 
4 his heart's sun, the blooming Blumine shone on him. Ah ! a 
4 little while ago, and he was yet in all darkness : him what 
1 Graceful (Holde) would ever love ? Disbelieving all things, the 
4 poor youth had never learned to believe in himself. With- 

• drawn, in proud timidity, within his own fastnesses ; solitary 
1 from men, yet baited by night-spectres enough, he saw him- 
4 self, with a sad indignation, constrained to renounce the fairest 
4 hopes of existence. And now, O now ! " She looks on thee," 
4 cried he : 44 she the fairest, noblest ; do not her dark eyes tell 
4 thee, thou art not despised ? The Heaven's-Messenger ! All 

• Heaven's blessings be hers !" Thus did soft melodies flow 
4 through his heart ; tones of an infinite gratitude ; sweetest in- 
4 timations that he also was a man, that for him also unutter- 
4 able joys had been provided. 

4 In free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent glances, laugh- 
4 ter, tears, and often with the inarticulate mystic speech of 
4 Music : such was the element they now lived in ; in such a 
4 many-tinted, radiant Aurora, and by this fairest of Orient Light- 
4 bringers must our Friend be blandished, and the new Apoca- 
4 lypse of Nature unrolled to him. Fairest Blumine ! And, even 
4 as a Star, all Fire and humid Softness, a very Light-ray incar- 
4 nate ! Was there so much as a fault, a "caprice," he could 
4 have dispensed with ? Was she not to him in veiy deed a 
4 Morning-Star ; did not her presence bring with it airs from 
4 Heaven ? As from ^Eolian Harps in the breath of dawn, as 
4 from the Memnon's Statue struck by the rosy finger of Aurora, 
4 unearthly music was around him, and lapped him into untried 
4 balmy Rest. Pale Doubt fled away to the distance ; Life 
4 bloomed-up with happiness and hope. The past, then, was all 

• a haggard dream ; he had been in the Garden of Eden, then, 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 101 

' and could not discern it ! But lo now ! the black walls of his 
' prison melt away ; the captive is alive, is free. If he loved his 
' Disenchantress ? Ach Gott ! His whole heart and soul and 
' life were hers, but never had he named it Love : existence was 

* all a Feeling, not yet shaped into a Thought.' 

Nevertheless, into a Thought, nay into an Action, it must 
be shaped ; for neither Disenchanter nor Disenchantress, mere 
' Children of Time,' can abide by Feeling alone. The Professor 
knows not, to this day, 'how in her soft, fervid bosom the 
1 Lovely found determination, even on hest of Necessity, to cut- 

* asunder these so blissful bonds.' He even appears surprised 
at the ' Duenna Cousin,' whoever she may have been, ' in whose 
1 meagre, hunger-bitten philosophy, the religion of young hearts 
1 was, from the first, faintly approved of.' We, even at such 
distance, can explain it without necromancy. Let the Philoso- 
pher answer this one question : What figure, at that period, was 
a Mrs. Teufelsdrockh likely to make in polished society ? Could 
she have driven so much as a brass-bound Gig, or even a simple 
iron-spring one? Thou foolish 'absolved Auscultatory before 
whom lies no prospect of capital, will any yet known ' religion 
of young hearts' keep the human kitchen warm ? Pshaw ! thy 
divine Blumine, when she 'resigned herself to wed some richer,' 
shows more philosophy, though but 'a woman of genius,' than 
thou, a pretended man. 

Our readers have witnessed the origin of this Love-mania, 
and with what royal splendour it waxes, and rises. Let no one 
ask us to unfold the glories of its dominant state ; much less the 
horrors of its almost instantaneous dissolution. Flow from such 
inorganic masses, henceforth madder than ever, as lie in these 
Bags, can even fragments of a living delineation be organised ? 
Besides, of what profit were it ? We view, with a lively plea- 
sure, the gay silk Montgolfier start from the ground, and shoot 
upwards, cleaving the liquid deeps, till it dwindle to a luminous 
star : but what is there to look longer on, when once, by natural 
elasticity, or accident of fire, it has exploded ? A hapless air- 
navigator, plunging, amid torn parachutes, sand-bags, and con- 
fused wreck, fast enough into the jaws of the Devil ! Suffice it 
to know that Teufelsdrockh rose into the highest regions of the 
Empyrean, by a natural parabolic track, and returned thence 
in a quick perpendicular one. For the rest, let any feeling 



102 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

reader, who has been unhappy enough to do the like, paint it 
out for himself : considering only that if he, for his perhaps 
comparatively insignificant mistress, underwent such agonies 
and frenzies, what must Teufelsdrockh's have been, with a fire- 
heart, and for a nonpareil Blumine ! We glance merely at the 
final scene : 

' One morning, he found his Morning-star all dimmed and 
1 dusky-red ; the fair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to 

* have been weeping. Alas, no longer a Morning-star, but a 
' troublous skyey Portent, announcing that the Doomsday had 
' dawned ! She said, in a tremulous voice, They were to meet 

* no more.' The thunderstruck Air-sailor is not wanting to him- 
self in this dread hour : but what avails it ? We omit the pas- 
sionate expostulations, entreaties, indignations, since all was 
vain, and not even an explanation was conceded him ; and 
hasten to the catastrophe. '"Farewell, then, Madam I" said 
1 he, not without sternness, for his stung pride helped him. She 
' put her hand in his, she looked in his face, tears started to 
' her e}res ; in wild audacity he clasped her to his bosom ; their 
' lips were joined, their two souls, like two dew-drops, rushed 
' into one, — for the first time, and for the last !' Thus was Teu- 
feisdrockh made immortal by a kiss. And then ? Why, then — 
' thick curtains of Night rushed over his soul, as rose the im- 

* measurable Crash of Doom ; and through the ruins as of a 

* shivered Universe was he falling, falling, towards the Abyss,* 



CHAPTER VI. 

SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 

We have long felt that, with a man like our Professor, mat- 
ters must often be expected to take a course of their own ; that 
in so multiplex, intricate a nature, there might be channels, both 
for admitting and emitting, such as the Psychologist had seldom 
noted ; in short, that on no grand occasion and convulsion, 
neither in the joy-storm nor in the woe-storm, could you predict 
his demeanour. 

To our less philosophical readers, for example, it is now 
clear that the so passionate Teufelsdrockh, precipitated through 



chap. vi. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 103 

1 a shivered Universe' in this extraordinary way, has only one of 
three things which he can next do : Establish himself in Bed- 
lam ; begin writing Satanic Poetry ; or blow-out his brains. In 
the progress towards any of which consummations, do not such 
readers anticipate extravagance enough ; breast-beating, brow- 
beating (against walls), lion-bellowings of blasphemy and the 
like, stampings, sinkings, breakages of furniture, if not arson 
itself? 

Nowise so does Teufelsdrockh deport him. He quietly lifts 
his Pilgerstab (Pilgrim-staff), ' old business being soon wound- 
up ;' and begins a perambulation and circumambulation of the 
terraqueous Globe ! Curious it is, indeed, how with such viva- 
city of conception, such intensity of feeling, above all, with these 
unconscionable habits of Exaggeration in speech, he combines 
that wonderful stillness of his, that stoicism in external proce- 
dure. Thus, if his sudden bereavement, in this matter of the 
Flower-goddess, is talked of as a real Doomsday and Dissolu- 
tion of Nature, in which light doubtless it partly appeared to 
himself, his own nature is nowise dissolved thereby ; but rather 
is compressed closer. For once, as we might say, a Blumine 
by magic appliances has unlocked that shut heart of his, and 
its hidden things rush-out tumultuous, boundless, like genii 
enfranchised from their glass phial : but no sooner are your 
magic appliances withdrawn, than the strange casket of a heart 
springs-to again ; and perhaps there is now no key extant that 
will open it ; for a Teufelsdrockh, as we remarked, will not love 
a second time. Singular Diogenes ! No sooner has that heart- 
rending occurrence fairly taken place, than he affects to regard 
it as a thing natural, of which there is nothing more to be said. 
' One highest hope, seemingly legible in the eyes of an Angel, 
1 had recalled him as out of Death-shadows into celestial Life : 
' but a gleam of Tophet passed over the face of his Angel ; he 
1 was rapt away in whirlwinds, and heard the laughter of De- 

* mons. It was a Calenture,' adds he, 'whereby the Youth saw 

* green Paradise-groves in the waste Ocean-waters : a lying vision, 
« yet not wholly a lie, for he saw it.' But what things soever 
passed in him, when he ceased to see it ; what ragings and de- 
spairings soever Teufelsdrockh's soul was the scene of, he has 
the goodness to conceal under a quite opaque cover of Silence. 
We know it well ; the first mad paroxysm past, our brave Gne- 



104 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

schen collected his dismembered philosophies, and buttoned him- 
self together ; he was meek, silent, or spoke of the weather and 
the Journals : only by a transient knitting of those shaggy brows, 
by some deep flash of those eyes, glancing one knew not whether 
with tear-dew or with fierce fire, — might you have guessed what 
a Gehenna was within ; that a whole Satanic School were spout- 
ing, though inaudibly, there. To consume your own choler, as 
some chimneys consume their own smoke ; to keep a whole 
Satanic School spouting, if it must spout, inaudibly, is a nega- 
tive yet no slight virtue, nor one of the commonest in these 
times. 

Nevertheless, we will not take upon us to say, that in the 
strange measure he fell upon, there was not a touch of latent In- 
sanity; whereof indeed the actual condition of these Documents 
in Capricormis and Aquarius is no bad emblem. His so un- 
limited Wanderings, toilsome enough, are without assigned or 
perhaps assignable aim ; internal Unrest seems his sole guid- 
ance ; he wanders, wanders, as if that curse of the Prophet had 
fallen on him, and he were 'made like unto a wheel.' Doubt- 
less, too, the chaotic nature of these Paper-bags aggravates our 
obscurity. Quite without note of preparation, for example, we 
come upon the following slip : ' A peculiar feeling it is that will 
1 rise in the Traveller, when turning some hill-range in his desert 

* road, he descries lying far below, embosomed among its groves 

* and green natural bulwarks, and all diminished to a toybox, 
' the fair Town, where so many souls, as it were seen and yet 

* unseen, are driving their multifarious traffic. Its white steeple 
' is then truly a starward-pointing finger ; the canopy of blue 
4 smoke seems like a sort of Life-breath : for always, of its own 

* unity, the soul gives unity to whatsoever it looks on with love ; 
1 thus does the little D wellingplace of men, in itself a congeries 

* of houses and huts, become for us an individual, almost a per- 
' son. But what thousand other thoughts unite thereto, if the 

* place has to ourselves been the arena of joyous or mournful 
1 experiences ; if perhaps the cradle we were rocked in still 

* stands there, if our Loving ones still dwell there, if our Buried 
1 ones there slumber !' Does Teufelsdrockh, as the wounded 
eagle is said to make for its own eyrie, and -indeed military 
deserters, and all hunted outcast creatures, turn as if by instinct 
in the direction of their birthland, — fly first, in this extremity, 



chap. vi. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 105 

towards his native Entepfuhl ; but reflecting that there no help 
awaits him, take only one wistful look from the distance, and 
then wend elsewhither ? 

Little happier seems to be his next flight : into the wilds of 
Nature ; as if in her mother-bosom he would seek healing. So 
at least we incline to interpret the following Notice, separated 
from the former by some considerable space, wherein, however, 
is nothing noteworthy : 

4 Mountains were not new to him ; but rarely are Mountains 
1 seen in such combined majesty and grace as here. The rocks 
4 are of that sort called Primitive by the mineralogists, which 
4 always arrange themselves in masses of a rugged, gigantic 
4 character ; which ruggedness, however, is here tempered by 
4 a singular airiness of form, and softness of environment : in a 
4 climate favourable to vegetation, the gray cliff, itself covered 
4 with lichens, shoots-up through a garment of foliage or ver- 
4 dure ; and white, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster round 
4 the everlasting granite. In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates 
4 with Grandeur : you ride through stony hollows, along strait 
4 passes, traversed by torrents, overhung by high walls of rock ; 
4 now winding amid broken shaggy chasms, and huge frag- 
4 ments ; now suddenly emerging into some emerald valley, 
4 where the streamlet collects itself into a Lake, and man has 
4 again found a fair dwelling, and it seems as if Peace had 
1 established herself in the bosom of Strength. 

4 To Peace, however, in this vortex of existence, can the 
4 Son of Time not pretend : still less if some Spectre haunt him 
4 from the Past ; and the Future is wholly a Stygian Darkness, 

* spectre-bearing. Reasonably might the Wanderer exclaim to 
4 himself : Are not the gates of this world's Happiness inexor- 
4 ably shut against thee ; hast thou a hope that is not mad ? 
1 Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, or in the original 
1 Greek if that suit thee better : 44 Whoso can look on Death 

* will start at no shadows." 

4 From such meditations is the Wanderer's attention called 
1 outwards ; for now the Valley closes-in abruptly, intersected by 
1 a huge mountain mass, the stony water-worn ascent of which 
4 is not to be accomplished on horseback. Arrived aloft, he 
4 finds himself again lifted into the evening sunset light ; and 

* cannot but pause, and gaze round him, some moments there. 



106 SARTOR RESARTUS. book it. 

4 An upland irregular expanse of wold, where valleys in com- 
1 plex branchings are suddenly or slowly arranging their descent 
' towards every quarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are 
' beneath your feet, and folded together : only the loftier sum- 
1 mits look down here and there as on a second plain ; lakes 

* also lie clear and earnest in their solitude. No trace of man 

* now visible ; unless indeed it were he who fashioned that 
1 little visible link of Highway, here, as would seem, scaling 
' the inaccessible, to unite Province with Province. But sun- 
' wards, lo you ! how it towers sheer up, a world of Mountains, 
1 the diadem and centre of the mountain region ! A hundred 
' and a hundred savage peaks, in the last light of Day ; all 
1 glowing, of gold and amethyst, like giant spirits of the wilder- 
' ness ; there in their silence, in their solitude, even as on the 
1 night when Noah's Deluge first dried ! Beautiful, nay solemn, 

* was the sudden aspect to our Wanderer. He gazed over those 
' stupendous masses with wonder, almost with longing desire ; 

* never till this hour had he known Nature, that she was One, 
' that she was his Mother and divine. And as the ruddy glow 
1 was fading into clearness in the sky, and the Sun had now 
' departed, a murmur of Eternity and Immensity, of Death and 
1 of Life, stole through his soul ; and he felt as if Death and 
' Life were one, as if the Earth were not dead, as if the Spirit 
4 of the Earth had its throne in that splendour, and his own 
1 spirit were therewith holding communion. 

'The spell was broken by a sound of carriage - wheels. 

* Emerging from the hidden Northward, to sink soon into the 

* hidden Southward, came a gay Barouche -and -four : it was 
' open ; servants and postillions wore wedding- favours : that 
1 happy pair, then, had found each other, it was their marriage 
'evening! Few moments brought them near: Die Himmel / 

* It was Herr Towgood and Blumine ! With slight un- 

1 recognising salutation they passed me ; plunged down amid 

* the neighbouring thickets, onwards, to Heaven, and to Eng- 
1 land ; and I, in my friend Richter's words, / remained alone, 
1 behind them, with the Night' 

Were it not cruel in these circumstances, here might be the 
place to insert an observation, gleaned long ago from the great 
Clothes- Volume, where it stands with quite other intent : ■ Some 

* time before Small-pox was extirpated/ says the Professor, 



chap. vi. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 107 

' there came a new malady of the spiritual sort on Europe : I 
' mean the epidemic, now endemical, of View-hunting. Poets 

* of old date, being privileged with Senses, had also enjoyed 

* external Nature ; but chiefly as we enjoy the crystal cup which 
1 holds good or bad liquor for us ; that is to say, in silence, or 
' with slight incidental commentary : never, as I compute, till 
' after the Sorrows of Werter, was there man found who would 

* say : Come let us make a Description ! Having drunk the 
' liquor, come let us eat the glass ! Of which endemic the Jen- 
' ner is unhappily still to seek.' Too true ! 

We reckon it more important to remark that the Professor's 
Wanderings, so far as his stoical and cynical envelopment ad- 
mits us to clear insight, here first take their permanent cha- 
racter, fatuous or not. That Basilisk-glance of the Barouche- 
and-four seems to have withered-up what little remnant of a 
purpose may have still lurked in him : Life has become wholly 
a dark labyrinth ; wherein, through long years, our Friend, fly- 
ing from spectres, has to stumble about at random, and natur- 
ally with more haste than progress. 

Foolish were it in us to attempt following him, even from 
afar, in this extraordinary world-pilgrimage of his ; the simplest 
record of which, were clear record possible, would fill volumes. 
Hopeless is the obscurity, unspeakable the confusion. He glides 
from country to country, from condition to condition ; vanish- 
ing and re- appearing, no man can calculate how or where. 
Through all quarters of the world he wanders, and apparently 
through all circles of society. If in any scene, perhaps difficult 
to fix geographically, he settles for a time, and forms connexions, 
be sure he will snap them abruptly asunder. Let him sink out 
of sight as Private Scholar [Privatisirendef) y living by the 
grace of God in some European capital, you may next find him 
as Hadjee in the neighbourhood of Mecca. It is an inexplicable 
Phantasmagoria, capricious, quick-changing ; as if our Travel- 
ler, instead of limbs and highways, had transported himself by 
some wishing-carpet, or Fortunatus' Hat. The whole, too, im- 
parted emblematically, in dim multifarious tokens (as that col- 
lection of Street - Advertisements) ; with only some touch of 
direct historical notice sparingly interspersed : little light-islets 
in the world of haze ! So that, from this point, the Professor is 
more of an enigma than ever. In figurative language, we might 



108 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

say he becomes, not indeed a spirit, yet spiritualised, vaporised. 
Fact unparalleled in Biography : The river of his History, 
which we have traced from its tiniest fountains, and hoped to 
see flow onward, with increasing current, into the ocean, here 
dashes itself over that terrific Lover's Leap ; and, as a mad- 
foaming cataract, flies wholly into tumultuous clouds of spray ! 
Low down it indeed collects again into pools and plashes ; yet 
only at a great distance, and with difficulty, if at all, into a ge- 
neral stream. To cast a glance into certain of those pools and 
plashes, and trace whither they run, must, for a chapter or two, 
form the limit of our endeavour. 

For which end doubtless those direct historical Notices, 
where they can be met with, are the best. Nevertheless, of this 
sort too there occurs much, which, with our present light, it 
were questionable to emit. Teufelsdrockh, vibrating everywhere 
between the highest and the lowest levels, comes into contact 
with public History itself. For example, those conversations 
and relations with illustrious Persons, as Sultan Mahmoud, the 
Emperor Napoleon, and others, are they not as yet rather of a 
diplomatic character than of a biographic ? The Editor, appre- 
ciating the sacredness of crowned heads, nay perhaps suspect- 
ing the possible trickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew 
this province for the present ; a new time may bring new in- 
sight and a different duty. 

If we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for 
there was none, yet with what immediate outlooks ; at all events, 
in what mood of mind, the Professor undertook and prosecuted 
this world-pilgrimage, — the answer is more distinct than favour- 
able. * A nameless Unrest,' says he, * urged me forward; to 
1 which the outward motion was some momentary lying solace. 

* Whither should I go ? My Loadstars were blotted out ; in 
' that canopy of grim fire shone no star. Yet forward must I ; 

* the ground burnt under me ; there was no rest for the sole 

* of my foot. I was alone, alone ! Ever too the strong inward 

* longing shaped Fantasms for itself : towards these, one after 

* the other, must I fruitlessly wander. A feeling I had, that for 

* my fever-thirst there was and must be somewhere a healing 
' Fountain. To many fondly imagined Fountains, the Saints' 

* Wells of these days, did I pilgrim ; to great Men, to great 
4 Cities, to great Events : but found there no healing. In strange 



chap. vi. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 109 

' countries, as in the well-known ; in savage deserts, as in the 

* press of corrupt civilisation, it was ever the same : how could 
' your Wanderer escape from — his own Shadow ? Neverthe- 

* less still Forward ! I felt as if in great haste ; to do I saw 
' not what. From the depths of my own heart, it called to me, 

* Forwards ! The winds and the streams, and all Nature sounded 

* to me, Forwards I .Ach Gott, I was even, once for all, a Son 
' of Time.' 

From which is it not clear that the internal Satanic School 
was still active enough ? He says elsewhere : ' The Enchiridion 

* of Epictetns I had ever with me, often as my sole rational 

* companion ; and regret to mention that the nourishment it 
' yielded was trifling.' Thou foolish Teufelsdrockh ! How could 
it else ? Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus 
much : The end of Man is an Action, and not a Thought \ though 
it were the noblest ? 

1 How I lived ?' writes he once : ' Friend, hast thou con- 

* sidered the "rugged all-nourishing Earth," as Sophocles well 
' names her ; how she feeds the sparrow on the house-top, much 
1 more her darling, man ? While thou stirrest and livest, thou 
1 hast a probability of victual. My breakfast of tea has been 
■ cooked by a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who 

* wiped her earthen kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted wild- 
1 eggs in the sand of Sahara ; I have awakened in Paris Estra- 
1 fiades and Vienna Malzleins, with no prospect of breakfast 
1 beyond elemental liquid. That I had my Living to seek saved 
1 me from Dying, — by suicide. In our busy Europe, is there 
1 not an everlasting demand for Intellect, in the chemical, me- 
1 chanical, political, religious, educational, commercial depart- 
1 ments ? In Pagan countries, cannot one write Fetishes ? Liv- 
1 ing ! Little knowest thou what alchemy is in an inventive 
1 Soul ; how, as with its little finger, it can create provision 
1 enough for the body (of a Philosopher) ; and then, as with both 
1 hands, create quite other than provision ; namely, spectres to 
' torment itself withal.' 

Poor Teufelsdrockh ! Flying with Hunger always parallel 
to him ; and a whole Infernal Chase in his rear ; so that the 
countenance of Hunger is comparatively a friend's ! Thus must 
he, in the temper of ancient Cain, or of the modern Wandering 
Jew, — save only that he feels himself not guilty and but suffer- 



i jo SARTOR RES ARTUS. book n. 

ing the pains of guilt, — wend to and fro with aimless speed. 
Thus must he, over the whole surface of the Earth (by foot- 
prints), write his Sorrows of Teufelsdrbckh j even as the great 
Goethe, in passionate words, had to write his Sorrows of Werter, 
before the spirit freed herself, and he could become a Man. 
Vain truly is the hope of your swiftest Runner to escape ' from 
his own Shadow' ! Nevertheless, in these sick days, when the 
Born of Heaven first descries himself (about the age of twenty) 
in a world such as ours, richer than usual in two things, in 
Truths grown obsolete, and Trades grown obsolete, — what can 
the fool think but that it is all a Den of Lies, wherein whoso 
will not speak Lies and act Lies, must stand idle and despair ? 
Whereby it happens that, for your nobler minds, the publishing 
of some such Work of Art, in one or the other dialect, becomes 
almost a necessity. For what is it properly but an Altercation 
with the Devil, before you begin honestly Fighting him ? Your 
Byron publishes his Sorrows of Lord George, in verse and in 
prose, and copiously otherwise : your Bonaparte represents his 
Sorrows of Napoleon Opera, in an all -too stupendous style ; 
with music of cannon-volleys, and murder-shrieks of a world ; 
his stage-lights are the fires of Conflagration ; his rhyme and 
recitative are the tramp of embattled Hosts and the sound of 
falling Cities. — Happier is he who, like our Clothes -Philoso- 
pher, can write such matter, since it must be written, on the 
insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles only ; and also survive the 
writing thereof! 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE EVERLASTING NO. 

Under the strange nebulous envelopment, wherein our Pro- 
fessor has now shrouded himself, no doubt but his spiritual 
nature is nevertheless progressive, and growing : for how can 
the ' Son of Time,' in any case, stand still ? We behold him, 
through those dim years, in a state of crisis, of transition : his 
mad Pilgrimings, and general solution into aimless Discon- 
tinuity, what is all this but a mad Fermentation ; wherefrom, 
the fiercer it is, the clearer product will one day evolve itself? 

Such transitions are ever full of pain : thus the Eagle when 



chap. vii. THE EVERLASTING NO. in 

he moults is sickly ; and, to attain his new beak, must harshly 
dash-off the old one upon rocks. What Stoicism soever our 
Wanderer, in his individual acts and motions, may affect, it is 
clear that there is a hot fever of anarchy and misery raging 
within ; coruscations of which flash out : as, indeed, how could 
there be other ? Have we not seen him disappointed, bemocked 
of Destiny, through long years ? All that the young heart might 
desire and pray for has been denied ; nay, as in the last worst 
instance, offered and then snatched away. Ever an ' excellent 
Passivity ;' but of useful, reasonable Activity, essential to the 
former as Food to Hunger, nothing granted : till at length, in 
this wild Pilgrimage, he must forcibly seize for himself an Ac- 
tivity, though useless, unreasonable. Alas, his cup of bitterness, 
which had been filling drop by drop, ever since that first ' ruddy 
morning' in the Hinterschlag Gymnasium, was at the very lip ; 
and then with that poison-drop, of the Towgood-and-Blumine 
business, it runs over, and even hisses over in a deluge of foam. 

He himself says once, with more justice than originality : 
1 Man is, properly speaking, based upon Hope, he has no other 
' possession but PI ope ; this world of his is emphatically the 
1 Place of Hope.' What, then, was our Professor's possession ? 
We see him, for the present, quite shut-out from Hope ; look- 
ing not into the golden orient, but vaguely all round into a dim 
copper firmament, pregnant with earthquake and tornado. 

Alas, shut-out from PI ope, in a deeper sense than we yet 
dream of ! For, as he wanders wearisomely through this world, 
he has now lost all tidings of another and higher. Full of re- 
ligion, or at least of religiosity, as our Friend has since exhibited 
himself, he hides not that, in those days, he was wholly irre- 
ligious : 'Doubt had darkened into Unbelief,' says he ; 'shade 
' after shade goes grimly over your soul, till you have the fixed, 
1 starless, Tartarean black.' To such readers as have reflected, 
what can be called reflecting, on man's life, and happily dis- 
covered, in contradiction to much Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, 
speculative and practical, that Soul is not synonymous with Sto- 
mach ; who understand, therefore, in our Friend's words, ' that, 
' for man's well-being, Faith is properly the one thing needful ; 
1 how, with it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure 
* the shame and the cross ; and without it, Worldlings puke-up 
1 their sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxury :' to such 



H2 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

it will be clear that, for a pure moral nature, the loss of his re- 
ligious Belief was the loss of everything. Unhappy young man ! 
All wounds, the crush of long-continued Destitution, the stab of 
false Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in thy so genial 
heart, would have healed again, had not its life-warmth been 
withdrawn. Weil might he exclaim, in his wild way : ' Is there 
1 no God, then ; but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever 
1 since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe, and see- 
1 ing it go ? Has the word Duty no meaning ; is what we call 
1 Duty no divine Messenger and Guide, but a false earthly 

* Fantasm, made-up of Desire and Fear, of emanations from 
1 the Gallows and from Doctor Graham's Celestial-Bed ? Hap- 
1 piness of an approving Conscience ! Did not Paul of Tarsus, 
1 whom admiring men have since named Saint, feel that he was 
1 "the chief of sinners ;" and Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit 
1 {Wohlgemuth), spend much of his time in fiddling ? Foolish 
1 Wordmonger and Motive-grinder, who in thy Logic-mill hast 
1 an earthly mechanism for the Godlike itself, and wouldst fain 
1 grind me out Virtue from the husks of Pleasure, — I tell thee, 
1 Nay ! To the unregenerate Prometheus Vinctus of a man, it 
1 is ever the bitterest aggravation of his wretchedness that he 

* is conscious of Virtue, that he feels himself the victim not of 
1 suffering only, but of injustice. What then ? Is the heroic iri- 
' spiration we name Virtue but some Passion ; some bubble of 
1 the blood, bubbling in the direction others profit by ? I know 
1 not : only this I know, If what thou namest Happiness be our 
1 true aim, then are we all astray. With Stupidity and sound 
4 Digestion man may front much. But what, in these dull un- 

* imaginative days, are the terrors of Conscience to the diseases 
' of the Liver ! Not on Morality, but on Cookery, let us build 

* our stronghold : there brandishing our frying-pan, as censer, 
' let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and live at ease on the 

* fat things he has provided for his Elect !' 

Thus has the bewildered Wanderer to stand, as so many 
have done, shouting question after question into the Sibyl-cave 
of Destiny, and receive no Answer but an Echo. It is all a 
grim Desert, this once-fair world of his ; wherein is heard only 
the howling of wild-beasts, or the shrieks of despairing, hate- 
filled men ; and no Pillar of Cloud by day, and no Pillar of Fire 
by night, any longer guides the Pilgrim. To such length has 



Chap. Vii. THE EVERLASTING NO. 113 

the spirit of Inquiry carried him. 'But what boots it {was 
1 thufs) ?' cries he : 'it is but the common lot in this era. Not 
' having come to spiritual majority prior to the Siecle de Louis 

* Qiiinze, and not being born purely a Loghead (Dummkopf), 
1 thou hadst no other outlook. The whole world is, like thee, 
' sold to Unbelief; their old Temples of the Godhead, which for 
' long have not been rainproof, crumble down ; and men ask 
' now : Where is the Godhead ; our eyes never saw him ?' 

Pitiful enough were it, for all these wild utterances, to call 
our Diogenes wicked. Unprofitable servants as we all are, per- 
haps at no era of his life was he more decisively the Servant of 
Goodness, the Servant of God, than even now when doubting 
God's existence. 'One circumstance I note,' says he: 'after all 
1 the nameless woe that Inquiry, which for me, what it is not 
1 always, was genuine Love of Truth, had wrought me, I never- 
' theless still loved Truth, and would bate no jot of my alle- 
1 giance to her. "Truth 1" I cried, "though the Heavens crush 
1 me for following her : no Falsehood ! though a whole celestial 
' Lubberland were the price of Apostasy." In conduct it was 

* the same. Had a divine Messenger from the clouds, or mira- 
1 culous Handwriting on the wall, convincingly proclaimed to 
1 me This thou shalt do, with what passionate readiness, as I 
' often thought, would I have done it, had it been leaping into 
' the infernal Fire. Thus, in spite of all Motive-grinders, and 
1 Mechanical Proflt-and-Loss Philosophies, with the sick oph- 
' thalmia and hallucination they had brought on, was the In- 
1 finite nature of Duty still dimly present to me : living without 
' God in the world, of God's light I was not utterly bereft ; if my 
' as yet sealed eyes, with their unspeakable longing, could no- 
1 where see Him, nevertheless in my heart He was present, and 
1 His heaven-written Law still stood legible and sacred there.' 

Meanwhile, under all these tribulations, and temporal and 
spiritual destitutions, what must the Wanderer, in his silent soul, 
have endured! 'The painfuilest feeling,' writes he, 'is that cf 
1 your own Feebleness {Unkraft) ; ever, as the English Milton 
' says, to be weak is the true misery. And yet of your Strength 
' there is and can be no clear feeling, save by what you have 

* prospered in, by what you have done. Between vague waver- 
' ing Capability and fixed indubitable Performance, what a dif- 
4 ference I A certain inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells dimly 

I 



114 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

'in us ; which only our Works can render articulate and de- 
' cisively discernible. Our Works are the mirror wherein the 
' spirit first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly 
' of that impossible Precept, Know thyself; till it be translated 
1 into this partially possible one, Know what thou canst work 
1 at, 

' But for me, so strangely unprosperous had I been, the net- 
1 result of my Workings amounted as yet simply to — Nothing. 
1 How then could I believe in my Strength, when there was as 
1 yet no mirror to see it in ? Ever did this agitating, yet, as I 
1 now perceive, quite frivolous question, remain to me insoluble : 

• Hast thou a certain Faculty, a certain Worth, such even as 
1 the most have not; or art thou the completest Dullard of these 
1 modern times ? Alas, the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in your- 
1 self ; and how could I believe ? Had not my first, last Faith 
' in myself, when even to me the Heavens seemed laid open, 

■ and I dared to love, been ail-too cruelly belied ? The specu- 
' lative Mystery of Life grew ever more mysterious to me : nei- 
1 ther in the practical Mystery had I made the slightest progress, 

• but been everywhere buffeted, foiled, and contemptuously cast 
4 out. A feeble unit in the middle of a threatening Infinitude, 
1 I seemed to have nothing given me but eyes, whereby to dis- 

■ cern my own wretchedness. Invisible yet impenetrable walls, 
1 as of Enchantment, divided me from all living : was there, in 
' the wide world, any true bosom I could press trustfully to mine ? 

• O Heaven, No, there was none ! I kept a lock upon my lips : 
1 why should I speak much with that shifting variety of so-called 
1 Friends, in whose withered, vain and too-hungry souls Friend- 
1 ship was but an incredible tradition ? In such cases, your 
' resource is to talk little, and that little mostly from the News- 
1 papers. Now when I look back, it was a strange isolation I 

• then lived in. The men and women around me, even speak- 
' ing with me, were but Figures ; I had, practically, forgotten 
' that they were alive, that they were not merely automatic. I* 

' the midst of their crowded streets and assemblages, I walk'* 
1 solitary ; and (except as it was my own heart, not another. 
' that I kept devouring) savage also, as the tiger in his jungl 
' Some comfort it would have been, could I, like a Faust, hav 
' fancied myself tempted and tormented of the Devil; for a Hef 
as I imagine, without Life, though only diabolic Life, were 






chap. vii. THE EVERLASTING NO. 115 

* more frightful : but in our age of Down-pulling and Disbelief, 
1 the very Devil has been pulled down, you cannot so much as 
' believe in a Devil. To me the Universe was all void of Life, 
1 of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility : it was one huge, 

* dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead in- 
' difference, to grind me limb from limb. O, the vast, gloomy, 
' solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death ! Why was the Living 
' banished thither companionless, conscious ? Why, if there is 

* no Devil ; nay, unless the Devil is your God ?' 

A prey incessantly to such corrosions, might not, moreover, 
as the worst aggravation to them, the iron constitution even of 
a Teufelsdrockh threaten to fail ? We conjecture that he has 
known sickness ; and, in spite of his locomotive habits, perhaps 
sickness of the chronic sort. Hear this, for example : ' How 
' beautiful to die of broken -heart, on Paper ! Quite another 

* thing in practice ; every window of your Feeling, even of your 
' Intellect, as it were, begrimed and mud-bespattered, so that 
1 no pure ray can enter ; a whole Drugshop in your inwards ; 
' the fordone soul drowning slowly in quagmires of Disgust !' 

Putting all which external and internal miseries together, 
may we not find in the following sentences, quite in our Pro- 
fessor's still vein, significance enough ? ' From Suicide a certain 

* aftershine (Nac/isc/iem) of Christianity withheld me : perhaps 
' also a certain indolence of character ; for, was not that a remedy 
' I had at any time within reach ? Often, however, was there a 
1 question present to me : Should some one now, at the turning 
' of that corner, blow thee suddenly out of Space, into the other 
1 World, or other No-world, by pistol-shot, — how were it ? On 
' which ground, too, I have often, in sea- storms and sieged 
1 cities and other death -scenes, exhibited an imperturbability, 
' which passed, falsely enough, for courage.' 

' So had it lasted,' concludes the Wanderer, ' so had it lasted, 
y* as in bitter protracted Death-agony, through long years. The 
y heart within me, unvisited by any heavenly dewdrop, was smoul- 
\ dering in sulphurous, slow-consuming fire. Almost since earliest 
re)nemory I had shed no tear ; or once only when I, murmuring 
half-audibly, recited Faust's Deathsong, that wild Selig der den 
' er im Siegesglanzc findet (Happy whom he finds in Battle's 
' splendour), and thought that of this last Friend even I was 
not forsaken, that Destiny itself could not doom me not to die. 



Ii6 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

' Having no hope, neither had I any definite fear, were it of 
' Man or of Devil : nay, I often felt as if it might be solacing, 
' could the Arch-Devil himself, though in Tartarean terrors, but 
1 rise to me, that I might tell him a little of my mind. And yet, 
1 strangely enough, I lived in a continual, indefinite, pining fear ; 
1 tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive of I knew not what : 
1 it seemed as if all things in the Heavens above and the Earth 

* beneath would hurt me; as if the Heavens and the Earth were 
1 but boundless jaws of a devouring monster, wherein I, palpi- 
' tating, waited to be devoured. 

' Full of such humour, and perhaps the miserablest man in 
' the whole French Capital or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dog- 

* day, after much perambulation, toiling along the dirty little 

* Rue Saint-Thomas de TEnfer, among civic rubbish enough, in 
1 a close atmosphere, and over pavements hot as Nebuchadnez- 
' zar's Furnace ; whereby doubtless my spirits were little cheered ; 
' when, all at once, there rose a Thought in me, and I asked 
1 myself: " What art thou afraid of? Wherefore, like a coward, 
1 dost thou forever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trem- 
' bling ? Despicable biped ! what is the sum-total of the worst 
1 that lies before thee ? Death ? Well, Death ; and say the pangs 
' of Tophet too, and all that the Devil and Man may, will or 
1 can do against thee ! Hast thou not a heart ; canst thou not 

* suffer whatsoever it be ; and, as a Child of Freedom, though 
1 outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes 

* thee ? Let it come, then ; I will meet it and defy it !" And 
1 as I so thought, there rushed like a stream of fire over my 

* whole soul ; and I shook base Fear away from me forever. I 
1 was strong, of unknown strength ; a spirit, almost a god. Ever 
1 from that time, the temper of my misery was changed : not 

* Fear or whining Sorrow was it, but Indignation and grim fire- 
1 eyed Defiance. 

1 Thus had the Everlasting No (das ewige Neiri) pealed 
' authoritatively through all the recesses of my Being, of my 

* Me ; and then was it that my whole Me stood up, in native 

* God-created majesty, and with emphasis recorded its Protest. 

* Such a Protest, the most important transaction in Life, may 

* that same Indignation and Defiance, in a psychological point 

* of view, be fitly called. The Everlasting No had said : "Be- 1 
' hold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine ! 



chap. viii. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 117 

* (the Devil's) ;" to which my whole Me now made answer : "/ 
1 am not thine, but Free, and forever hate thee !" 

' It is from this hour that I incline to date my Spiritual New- 
1 birth, or Baphometic Fire-baptism ; perhaps I directly there- 
' upon began to be a Man.' 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 

Though, after this ' Baphometic Fire-baptism* of his, our 
Wanderer signifies that his Unrest was but increased ; as, in- 
deed, 'Indignation and Defiance,' especially against things in 
general, are not the most peaceable inmates ; yet can the Psy- 
chologist surmise that it was no longer a quite hopeless Unrest ; 
that henceforth it had at least a fixed centre to revolve round. 
For the fire-baptised soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven, 
here feels its own Freedom, which feeling is its Baphometic 
Baptism : the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus gained 
by assault, and will keep inexpugnable ; outwards from which 
the remaining dominions, not indeed without hard battling, will 
doubtless by degrees be conquered and pacificated. Under an- 
other figure, we might say, if in that great moment, in the Rue 
Saint-Thomas de VEnfer, the old inward Satanic School was not 
yet thrown out of doors, it received peremptory judicial notice 
to quit ; — whereby, for the rest, its howl-chantings, Ernulphus- 
cursings, and rebellious gnashings of teeth, might, in the mean 
while, become only the more tumultuous, and difficult to keep 
secret. 

Accordingly, if we scrutinise these Pilgrimings well, there is 
perhaps discernible henceforth a certain incipient method in 
their madness. Not wholly as a Spectre does Teufelsdrockh 
now storm through the world ; at worst as a spectre -fighting 
Man, nay who will one day be a Spectre-queller. If pilgriming 
restlessly to so many ' Saints' Wells,' and ever without quench- 
ing of his thirst, he nevertheless finds little secular wells, whereby 
from time to time some alleviation is ministered. In a word, he 
is now, if not ceasing, yet intermitting to ' eat his own heart ;' 
and clutches round him outwardly on the Not-me for whole- 



n8 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

somer food. Does not the following glimpse exhibit him in a 
much more natural state ? 

1 Towns also and Cities, especially the ancient, I failed not 
1 to look upon with interest. How beautiful to see thereby, 
' as through a long vista, into the remote Time ; to have, as it 
1 were, an actual section of almost the earliest Past brought safe 
1 into the Present, and set before your eyes ! There, in that old 
1 City, was a live, ember of Culinary Fire put down, say only two- 
' thousand years ago ; and there, burning more or less trium- 

* phantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, it has burnt, and 
1 still burns, and thou thyself seest the veiy smoke thereof. Ah ! 
1 and the far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then 

* also put down there ; and still miraculously burns and spreads ; 

* and the smoke and ashes thereof (in these Judgment-Halls and 
1 Churchyards), and its bellows-engines (in these Churches), thou 
' still seest ; and its flame, looking out from every kind coun- 
' tenance, and every hateful one, still warms thee or scorches 
1 thee. 

1 Of Man's Activity and Attainment the chief results are 

* aeriform, mystic, and preserved in Tradition only : such are 
1 his Forms of Government, with the Authority they rest on ; 
' his Customs, or Fashions both of Cloth-habits and of Soul- 

* habits ; much more his collective stock of Handicrafts, the 
' whole Faculty he has acquired of manipulating Nature : all 
' these things, as indispensable and priceless as they are, can- 
1 not in any way be fixed under lock and key, but must flit, 
1 spirit - like, on impalpable vehicles, from Father to Son; if 
' you demand sight of them, they are nowhere to be met with. 
' Visible Ploughmen and Hammermen there have been, ever 

■ from Cain and Tubalcain downwards : but where does your 
' accumulated Agricultural, Metallurgies and other Manufactur- 
' ing Skill lie warehoused ? It transmits itself on the atmo- 

* spheric air, on the sun's rays (by Hearing and by Vision) ; it is 

■ a thing aeriform, impalpable, of quite spiritual sort. In like 
' manner, ask me not, Where are the Laws ; where is the Go- 

* vernment ? In vain w 7 ilt thou go to Schonbrunn, to Down- 
' ing Street, to the Palais Bourbon : thou findest nothing there 
1 but brick or stone houses, and some bundles of Papers tied 
' with tape. Where, then, is that same cunningly-devised al- 
' mighty Government of theirs to be laid hands on ? Every* 



chap. viii. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 119 

* where, yet nowhere : seen only in its works, this too is a thing 

* aeriform, invisible ; or if you will, mystic and miraculous. So 
1 spiritual (geistig) is our whole daily Life : all that we do springs 
' out of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force ; only like a little Cloud- 

* image, or Armida's Palace, air-built, does the Actual body it- 
1 self forth from the great mystic Deep. 

'Visible and tangible products of the Past, again, I reckon-up 

* to the extent of three : Cities, with their Cabinets and Arsenals ; 

* then tilled Fields, to either or to both of which divisions Roads 

' with their Bridges may belong ; and thirdly Books. In 

' which third truly, the last invented, lies a worth far surpass- 
1 ing that of the two others. Wondrous indeed is the virtue of 
1 a true Book. Not like a dead city of stones, yearly crumbling, 
1 yearly needing repair ; more like a tilled field, but then a 
1 spiritual field ; like a spiritual tree, let me rather say, it 
' stands from year to year, and from age to age (we have 

* Books that already number some hundred -and -fifty human 
1 ages) ; and yearly comes its new produce of leaves (Commen- 
1 taries, Deductions, Philosophical, Political Systems ; or were it 
' only Sermons, Pamphlets, Journalistic Essays), every one of 
1 which is talismanic and thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men. 
1 O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two 
1 centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him 

* whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom 
1 they name Conqueror or City-burner ! Thou too art a Con- 
' queror and Victor ; ' but of the true sort, namely over the De- 
1 vil : thou too hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, 
1 and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and 
' Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the 
' Earth will pilgrim. — Fool ! why journeyest thou wearisomely, 
' in thy antiquarian fervour, to gaze on the stone pyramids of 
' Geeza, or the clay ones of Sacchara ? These stand there, as I 
' can tell thee, idle and inert, looking over the Desert, foolishly 
' enough, for the last three -thousand years : but canst thou 
' not open thy Hebrew Bible, then, or even Luther's Version 
' thereof?' 

No less satisfactory is his sudden appearance not in Battle, 
yet on some Battle-field ; which, we soon gather, must be that of 
Wagram ; so that here, for once, is a certain approximation to 
distinctness of date. Omitting much, let us impart what follows : 



i2o SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

' Horrible enough ! A whole Marchfeld strewed with shell- 
1 splinters, cannon-shot, ruined tumbrils, and dead men and 
1 horses ; stragglers still remaining not so much as buried. And 
1 those red mould heaps : ay, there lie the Shells of Men, out of 

* which all the Life and Virtue has been blown ; and now are 
1 they swept together, and crammed-down out of sight, like blown 
' Egg-shells ! — Did Nature, when she bade the Donau bring 
1 down his mould-cargoes from the Carinthian and Carpathian 
1 Heights, and spread them out here into the softest, richest 
1 level, — intend thee, O Marchfeld, for a corn-bearing Nursery, 
1 whereon her children might be nursed ; or for a Cockpit, 
' wherein they might the more commodiously be throttled and 
' tattered? Were thy three broad Highways, meeting here from 
' the ends of Europe, made for Ammunition-wagons, then ? 

* Were thy Wagrams and Stillfrieds but so many ready-built 
1 Casemates, wherein the house of Hapsburg might batter with 
' artillery, and with artillery be battered ? Konig Ottokar, amid 
1 yonder hillocks, dies under Rodolf's truncheon ; here Kaiser 
1 Franz falls a-swoon under Napoleon's : within which five cen- 
1 turies, to omit the others, how has thy breast, fair Plain, been 
1 defaced and defiled ! The greensward is torn-up and trampled- 

* down ; man's fond care of it, his fruit-trees, hedge-rows, and 
' pleasant dwellings, blown-away with gunpowder ; and the kind 
1 seedfield lies a desolate, hideous Place of Sculls. — Neverthe- 
1 less, Nature is at work ; neither shall these Powder-Devilkins 
' with their utmost devilry gainsay her :,but all that gore and 

* carnage will be shrouded-in, absorbed into manure ; and next 
1 year the Marchfeld will be green, nay greener. Thrifty un- 

* wearied Nature, ever out of our great waste educing some little 
1 profit of thy own, — how dost thou, from the very carcass of the 

* Killer, bring Life for the Living ! 

1 What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net-pur- 
' port and upshot of war ? To my own knowledge, for example, 
1 there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, usu- 

* ally some five-hundred souls. From these, by certain " Na- 

* tural Enemies" of the French, there are successively selected, 
' during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men : Dum- 

* drudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them : 
' she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to 
1 Hianhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one cars 



chap. viii. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 121 

4 weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can 
4 stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much 

* weeping and swearing, they are selected ; all dressed in red ; 

* and shipped away, at the public charges, some two-thousand 

* miles, or say only to the south of Spain ; and fed there till 
1 wanted. And now to that same spot, in the south of Spain, 

* are thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, 
4 in like manner wending : till at length, after infinite effort, the 

* two parties come into actual juxtaposition ; and Thirty stands 

* fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his hand. Straightway the 

* word ''Fire !" is given : and they blow the souls out of one 
1 another ; and in place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the 

* v/orld has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew 
' shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel ? Busy as the 
1 Devil is, not the smallest ! They lived far enough apart ; were 

* the entirest strangers ; nay, in so wide a Universe, there was 

* even, unconsciously, by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness 

* between them. How then ? Simpleton ! their Governors had 
1 fallen-out ; and, instead of shooting one another, had the cun- 

* ning to make these poor blockheads shoot. — Alas, so is it in 
1 Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands ; still as of old, 
1 " what devilry soever Kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper!" 
1 — In that fiction of the English Smollet, it is true, the final 
1 Cessation of War is perhaps prophetically shadowed forth ; 
1 where the two Natural Enemies, in person, take each a To- 
4 bacco-pipe, filled with Brimstone ; light the same, and smoke 
1 in one another's faces, till the weaker gives in : but from such 
4 predicted Peace-Era, what blood-filled trenches, and contents 
4 ous centuries, may still divide us !' 

Thus can the Professor, at least in lucid intervals, look away 
from his own sorrows, over the many-coloured world, and per- 
tinently enough note what is passing there. We may remark, 
indeed, that for the matter of spiritual culture, if for nothing 
else, perhaps few periods of his life were richer than this. In- 
ternally, there is the most momentous instructive Course of Prac- 
tical Philosophy, with Experiments, going on ; towards the right 
comprehension of which his Peripatetic habits, favourable to Me- 
ditation, might help him rather than hinder. Externally, again, 
as he wanders to and fro, there are, if for the longing heart little 
substance, yet for the seeing eye sights enough : in these so bound- 



122 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

less Travels of his, granting that the Satanic School was even 
partially kept down, what an incredible knowledge of our Planet, 
and its Inhabitants and their Works, that is to say, of all know- 
able things, might not Teufelsdrockh acquire ! 

1 1 have read in most Public Libraries,' says he, 'including 
' those of Constantinople and Samarcand : in most Colleges, ex- 
4 cept the Chinese Mandarin ones, I have studied, or seen that 

* there was no studying. Unknown Languages have I oftenest 

* gathered from their natural repertory, the Air, by my organ of 
'Hearing; Statistics, Geographies, Topographies came, through 

* the Eye, almost of their own accord. The ways of Man, how 
1 he seeks food, and warmth, and protection for himself, in most 

* regions, are ocularly known to me. Like the great Hadrian, I 
' meted-out much of the terraqueous Globe with a pair of Com- 

* passes that belonged to myself only. 

' Of great Scenes why speak ? Three summer days, I lin- 

* gered reflecting, and even composing (dichtete), by the Pine- 

* chasms of Vaucluse ; and in that clear Lakelet moistened my 
1 bread. I have sat under the Palm-trees of Tadmor ; smoked 
' a pipe among the ruins of Babylon. The great Wall of China 

* I have seen ; and can testify that it is of gray brick, coped and 

* covered with granite, and shows only second-rate masonry. — • 
1 Great Events, also, have not I witnessed? Kings sweated-down 

* (ausgemergelt) into Berlin-and-Milan Customhouse-Officers; the 

■ World well won, and the World well lost ; oftener than once a 

* hundred-thousand individuals shot (by each other) in one day. 
1 All kindreds and peoples and nations dashed together, and 

* shifted and shovelled into heaps, that they might ferment there, 

* and in time unite. The birth-pangs of Democracy, wherewith 

* convulsed Europe was groaning in cries that reached Heaven, 
1 could not escape me. 

1 For great Men I have ever had the warmest predilection ; 

* and can perhaps boast that few such in this era have wholly 

* escaped me. Great Men are the inspired (speaking and act- 

* ing) Texts of that divine Book of Revelations, whereof a 

* Chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named 

* History ; to which inspired Texts your numerous talented 
4 men, and your innumerable untalented men, are the better or 

* worse exegetic Commentaries, and wagonload of too-stupid, 

■ heretical or orthodox, weekly Sermons. For my study, the 



chap. vin. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 123 

' inspired Texts themselves ! Thus did not I, in very early 
' days, having disguised me as tavern-waiter, stand behind the 
' field-chairs, under that shady Tree at Treisnitz by the Jena 
1 Highway; waiting upon the great Schiller and greater Goethe ; 

* and hearing what I have not forgotten. For ' 

But at this point the Editor recalls his principle of 

caution, some time ago laid down, and must suppress much. 
Let not the sacredness of Laurelled, still more, of Crowned 
Heads, be tampered with. Should we, at a future day, find 
circumstances altered, and the time come for Publication, then 
may these glimpses into the privacy of the Illustrious be con- 
ceded ; which for the present were little better than treacherous, 
perhaps traitorous Eavesdroppings. Of Lord Byron, therefore, 
of Pope Pius, Emperor Tarakwang, and the * White Water-roses' 
(Chinese Carbonari) with their mysteries, no notice here ! Of 
Napoleon himself we shall only, glancing from afar, remark 
that Teufelsdrockh's relation to him seems to have been of very 
varied character. At first we find our poor Professor on the 
point of being shot as a spy ; then taken into private conversa- 
tion, even pinched on the ear, yet presented with no money ; at 
last indignantly dismissed, almost thrown out of doors, as an 
4 Ideologist.' 'He himself,' says the Professor, 'was among the 
' completest Ideologists, at least Ideopraxists : in the Idea {in 
1 der Idee) he lived, moved and fought. The man was a Di- 

* vine Missionary, though unconscious of it ; and preached, 
' through the cannon's throat, that great doctrine, La carriere 
1 ouverte aux talens (The Tools to him that can handle them), 

* which is our ultimate Political Evangel, wherein alone can 
' liberty lie. Madly enough he preached, it is true, as Enthu- 
' siasts and first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance, 
' amid much frothy rant ; yet as articulately perhaps as the 
1 case admitted. Or call him, if you will, an American Back- 
' woodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle 
1 with innumerable v/olves, and did not entirely forbear strong 

* liquor, rioting, and even theft ; whom, notwithstanding, the 
' peaceful Sower will follow, and, as he cuts the boundless 

* harvest, bless.' 

More legitimate and decisively authentic is Teufelsdrockh's 
appearance and emergence (we* know not well whence) in the 
solitude of the North Cape, on that June Midnight. He has 



124 SARTOR RES ARTUS. book n. 

a ' light-blue Spanish cloak' hanging round him, as his * most 
' commodious, principal, indeed sole upper-garment ;' and stands 
there, on the World-promontory, looking over the infinite Brine, 
like a little blue Belfry (as we figure), now motionless indeed, 
yet ready, if stirred, to ring quaintest changes. 

' Silence as of death,' writes he ; 'for Midnight, even in the 

* Arctic latitudes, has its character : nothing but the granite 

* cliffs ruddy-tinged, the peaceable gurgle of that slow-heaving 
1 Polar Ocean, over which in the utmost North the great Sun 
' hangs low and lazy, as if he too were slumbering. Yet is his 
1 cloud-couch wrought of crimson and cloth-of-gold ; yet does 
' his light stream over the mirror of waters, like a tremulous 
1 fire-pillar, shooting downwards to the abyss, and hide itself 
1 under my feet. In such moments, Solitude also is invaluable ; 
1 for who would speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies 
1 all Europe and Africa, fast asleep, except the watchmen ; and 
1 before him the silent Immensity, and Palace of the Eternal, 
1 whereof our Sun is but a porch-lamp ? 

1 Nevertheless, in this solemn moment comes a man, or mon- 
4 ster, scrambling from among the rock-hollows ; and, shaggy, 

* huge as the Hyperborean Bear, hails me in Russian speech : 
1 most probably, therefore, a Russian Smuggler. With cour- 
1 teous brevity, I signify my indifference to contraband trade, 
1 my humane intentions, yet strong wish to be private. In vain : 

* the monster, counting doubtless on his superior stature, and 
' minded to make sport for himself, or perhaps profit, were it 

* with murder, continues to advance ; ever assailing me with 
1 his importunate train-oil breath ; and now has advanced, till 
1 we stand both on the verge of the rock, the deep Sea rippling 
' greedily down below. What argument will avail ? On the 
' thick Hyperborean, cherubic reasoning, seraphic eloquence 

* were lost. Prepared for such extremity, I, deftly enough, 

* whisk aside one step ; draw out, from my interior reservoirs, 
1 a sufficient Birmingham Horse-pistol, and say, " Be so oblig- 
1 ing as retire, Friend (Er ziehe sick zuriick, Freund) y and with 
' promptitude !" This logic even the Hyperborean understands : 

* fast enough, with apologetic, petitionary growl, he sidles off ; 
1 and, except for suicidal as well as homicidal purposes, need 

* not return. 

' Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gunpowder : that it 



chap. vin. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 125 

1 makes all men alike tall. Nay, if thou be cooler, cleverer 
1 than I, if thou have more Mind, though all but no Body what- 
' ever, then canst thou kill me first, and art the taller. Hereby, 
1 at last, is the Goliath powerless, and the David resistless ; sa- 
4 vage Animalism is nothing, inventive Spiritualism is all. 

' With respect to Duels, indeed, I have my own ideas. Few 

* things, in this so surprising world, strike me with more sur- 
1 prise. Two little visual Spectra of men, hovering with inse- 

* cure enough cohesion in the midst of the Unfathomable, and 

* to dissolve therein, at any rate, very soon, — make pause at the 

* distance of twelve paces asunder ; whirl round ; and, simul- 

* taneously by the cunningest mechanism, explode one another 
' into Dissolution ; and off-hand become Air, and Non-extant ! 
1 Deuce on it {verdammt), the little spitfires ! — Nay, I think 

* with old Hugo von Trimberg : "God must needs laugh out- 

* right, could such a thing be, to see his wondrous Manikins 

* here below." ' 

But amid these specialties, let us not forget the great gener- 
ality, which is our chief quest here : How prospered the inner 
man of Teufelsdrockh under so much outward shifting ? Does 
Legion still lurk in him, though repressed ; or has he exorcised 
that Devil's Brood ? We can answer that the symptoms con- 
tinue promising. Experience is the grand spiritual Doctor ; 
and with him Teufelsdrockh has now been long a patient, swal- 
lowing many a bitter bolus. Unless our poor Friend belong to 
the numerous class of Incurables, which seems not likely, some 
cure will doubtless be effected. We should rather say that Le- 
gion, or the Satanic School, was now pretty well extirpated and 
cast out, but next to nothing introduced in its room ; whereby 
the heart remains, for the while, in a quiet but no comfortable 
state. 

'At length, after so much roasting,' thus writes our Auto- 
biographer, ' I was what you might name calcined. Pray only 
1 that it be not rather, as is the more frequent issue, reduced to 

* a capnt-mortuum / But in any case, by mere dint of prac- 
' tice, I had grown familiar with many things. Wretchedness 

* was still wretched ; but I could now partly see through it, 
■ and despise it. Which highest- mortal, in this inane Exist- 
1 ence, had I not found a Shadow-hunter, or Shadow-hunted ; 



126 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

' and, when I looked through his brave garnitures, miserable 
' enough ? Thy wishes have all been sniffed aside, thought I : 
* but what, had they even been all granted ! Did not the Boy 
1 Alexander weep because he had not two Planets to conquer ; 
' or a whole Solar System ; or after that, a whole Universe ? 
' Ach Gott, when I gazed into these Stars, have they not looked- 
1 down on me as if with pity, from their serene spaces ; like 
' Eyes glistening with heavenly tears over the little lot of man ! 
1 Thousands of human generations, all as noisy as our own, 
1 have been swallowed-up of Time, and there remains no wreck 
' of them any more ; and Arcturus and Orion and Sirius and 
' the Pleiades are still shining in their courses, clear and young, 
1 as when the Shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar. 

■ Pshaw ! what is this paltry little Dog-cage of an Earth ; what 
1 art thou that sittest whining there ? Thou art still Nothing, 

■ Nobody : true ; but who, then, is Something, Somebody ? For 
' thee the Family of Man has no use ; it rejects thee ; thou 
' art wholly as a dissevered limb : so be it ; perhaps it is better 

■ so !' 

Too-heavy-laden Teufelsdrockh ! Yet surely his bands are 
loosening ; one day he will hurl the burden far from him, and 
bound forth free and with a second youth. 

' This,' says our Professor, 'was the Centre of Indiffer- 
1 ence I had now' reached ; through which whoso travels from 
' the Negative Pole to the Positive must necessarily pass.' 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE EVERLASTING YEA. 

1 Temptations in the Wilderness P exclaims Teufelsdrockh : 
' Have we not all to be tried with such ? Not so easily can the 
' old Adam, lodged in us by birth, be dispossessed. Our Life is 

* compassed round with Necessity ; yet is the meaning of Life 

* itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary Force : thus have 
1 we a warfare ; in the beginning, especially, a hard -fought 
' battle. For the God-given mandate, Work thou in Welldoings 
1 lies mysteriously written, in Promethean Prophetic Characters, 



chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 127 

* in our hearts ; and leaves us no rest, night or day, till it be 
1 deciphered and obeyed ; till it burn forth, in our conduct, a 

* visible, acted Gospel of Freedom. And as the clay-given man- 
1 date, Eat thou and be filled, at the same time persuasively 
' proclaims itself through every nerve, — must not there be a con- 
1 fusion, a contest, before the better Influence can become the 
' upper ? 

' To me nothing seems more natural than that the Son of 

* Man, when such God-given mandate first prophetically stirs 

* within him, and the Clay must now be vanquished or van- 
' quish, — should be carried of the spirit into grim Solitudes, and 
1 there fronting the Tempter do grimmest battle with him ; de- 
1 fiantly setting him at naught, till he yield and fly. Name it as 
' we choose : with or without visible Devil, whether in the na- 

* tural Desert of rocks and sands, or in the populous moral 

* Desert of selfishness and baseness, — to such Temptation are 

* we all called. Unhappy if we are not ! Unhappy if we are 
1 but Half-men, in whom that divine handwriting has never 
1 blazed forth, all-subduing, in true sun-splendour ; but quivers 

* dubiously amid meaner lights : or smoulders, in dull pain, in 
' darkness, under earthly vapours ! — Our Wilderness is the wide 

* World in an Atheistic Century ; our Forty Days are long years 
' of suffering and fasting : nevertheless, to these also comes an 
' end. Yes, to me also was given, if not Victory, yet the con- 

* sciousness of Battle, and the resolve to persevere therein while 
' life or faculty is left. To me also, entangled in the enchanted 

* forests, demon-peopled, doleful of sight and of sound, it was 
' given, after weariest wanderings, to work out my way into the 
1 higher sunlit slopes — of that Mountain which has no summit, 
' or whose summit is in Heaven only !' 

He says elsewhere, under a less ambitious figure ; as figures 
are, once for all, natural to him : ' Has not thy Life been that 
' of most sufficient men (tiichtigen Manner) thou hast known 
' in this generation ? An outflush of foolish young Enthusiasm, 

* like the first fallow-crop, wherein are as many weeds as valu- 

* able herbs : this all parched away, under the Droughts of 
1 practical and spiritual Unbelief, as Disappointment, in thought 
' and act, often-repeated gave rise to Doubt, and Doubt gradu- 
1 ally settled into Denial ! If I have had a second-crop, and now 

* see the perennial greensward, and sit under umbrageous ce- 



128 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

1 dars, which defy all Drought (arid Doubt) ; herein too, be the 
1 Heavens praised, I am not without examples, and even ex- 
f emplars.' 

So that, for Teufelsdrockh also, there has been a ' glorious 
revolution :' these mad shadow-hunting and shadow-hunted Pil- 
grimings of his were but some purifying ' Temptation in the 
Wilderness,' before his apostolic work (such as it -vas) could 
begin ; which Temptation is now happily over, and. the Devil 
once more worsted ! Was ' that high moment in the Rue de 
VEnfer? then, properly the turning-point of the battle ; when 
the Fiend said, Worship me, or be torn in shreds j and was ans- 
wered valiantly with an Apage Satana? — Singular Teufels- 
drockh, would thou hadst told thy singular story in plain words ! 
But it is fruitless to look there, in those Paper-bags, for such. 
Nothing but innuendoes, figurative crotchets : a typical Shadow, 
fitfully wavering, prophetico-satiric ; no clear logical Picture. 
' How paint to the sensual eye,' asks he once, 'what passes in 
1 the Holy-of-Holies of Man's Soul ; in what words, known to 
1 these profane times, speak even afar-off of the unspeakable ?' 
We ask in turn : Why perplex these times, profane as they are, 
with needless obscurity, by omission and by commission ? Not 
mystical only is our Professor, but whimsical ; and involves him- 
self, now more than ever, in eye-bewildering chiaroscui'o. Suc- 
cessive glimpses, here faithfully imparted, our more gifted readers 
must endeavour to combine for their own behoof. 

He says : ' The hot Harmattan wind had raged itself out ; 
1 its howl went silent within me ; and the long-deafened soul 
1 could now hear. I paused in my wild wanderings ; and sat 
1 me down to wait, and consider ; for it was as if the hour of 

* change drew nigh. I seemed to surrender, to renounce utterly, 
1 and say : Fly, then, false shadows of Hope ; I will chase you no 
' more, I will believe you no more. And ye too, haggard spec- 
' tres of Fear, I care not for you ; ye too are all shadows and 
1 a lie. Let me rest here : for I am way-weary and life-weary ; 
1 I will rest here, were it but to die : to die or to live is alike 

* to me; alike insignificant.' — And again : ' Here, then, as I lay 
1 in that Centre of Indifference ; cast, doubtless by benign- 
' ant upper Influence, into a healing sleep, the heavy dreams 

* rolled gradually away, and I awoke to a new Heaven and a 
1 new Earth. The first preliminary moral Act, Annihilation of 



chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 129 

9 Self {Selbst-todtung) i had been happily accomplished ; and my 
1 mind's eyes were now unsealed, and its hands ungyved.' 

Might we not also conjecture, that the following passage 
refers to his Locality, during this same ' healing sleep ;' that his 
Pilgrim-staff lies cast aside here, on ' the high table-land ;' and 
indeed that the repose is already taking wholesome effect on 
him ? If i£ were not that the tone, in some parts, has more of 
riancy, even of levity, than we could have expected ! However, 
in Teufelsdrockh, there is always the strangest Dualism : light 
dancing, with guitar-music, will be going on in the fore-court, 
while by fits from within comes the faint whimpering of woe 
and wail. We transcribe the piece entire. 

' Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey Tent, musing 
' and meditating ; on the high table-land, in front of the Moun- 

* tains ; over me, as roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for 
' walls, four azure-flowing curtains, — namely, of the Four azure 
' Winds, on whose bottom-fringes also I have seen gilding. And 
9 then to fancy the fair Castles that stood sheltered in these 
9 Mountain hollows ■; with their green flower-lawns, and white 
1 dames and damosels, lovely enough : or better still, the straw- 
9 roofed Cottages, wherein stood many a Mother baking bread, 
' with her children round her : — all hidden and protectingly 
' folded-up in the valley-folds ; yet there and alive, as sure as 
' if I beheld them. Or to see, as well as fancy, the nine Towns 
4 and Villages, that lay round my mountain-seat, which, in still 
1 weather, were wont to speak to me (by their steeple-bells) with 
' metal tongue ; and, in almost all weather, proclaimed their 
1 vitality by repeated Smoke-clouds ; whereon, as on a culinary 
' horologe, I might read the hour of the day. For it was the 
' smoke of cookery, as kind housewives at morning, midday, 
1 eventide, were boiling their husbands' kettles ; and ever a blue 
9 pillar rose up into the air, successively or simultaneously, from 
' each of the nine, saying, as plainly as smoke could say : Such 
4 and such a meal is getting ready here. Not uninteresting ! 

* For you have the whole Borough, with all its love-makings and 
' scandal-mongeries, contentions and contentments, as in minia- 
1 ture, and could cover it all with your hat. — If, in my wide Way- 
' farings, I had learned to look into the business of the World 

* in its details, here perhaps was the place for combining it into 

* general propositions, and deducing inferences therefrom. 

K 



130 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

* Often also could I sec the black Tempest marching in 
1 anger through the Distance : round some Schreckhorn, as yet 
' grim-blue, would the eddying vapour gather, and there tumult- 

■ uously eddy, and flow down like a mad witch's hair; till, after 
' a space, it vanished, and, in the clear sunbeam, your Schreck- 
1 horn stood smiling grim-white, for the vapour had held snow. 

• How thou fermentest and elaboratest, in thy great fermenting- 
1 vat and laboratory of an Atmosphere, of a World, O Nature ! 
1 — Or what is Nature ? Ha ! why do I not name thee God ? 
1 Art not thou the " Living Garment of God" ? O Heavens, is 
1 it, in very deed, He, then, that ever speaks through thee; that 
' lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me ? 

1 Fore -shadows, call them rather fore -splendours, of that 
' Truth, and Beginning of Truths, fell mysteriously over my soul. 
' Sweeter than Dayspring to the Shipwrecked in NovaZembla ; 

■ ah, like the mother's voice to her little child that strays be- 
4 wildered, weeping, in unknown tumults ; like soft streamings of 
1 celestial music to my too-exasperated heart, came that Evangel. 
1 The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a charnel-house 
1 with spectres ; but godlike, and my Father's ! 

' With other eyes, too, could I now look upon my fellow 
1 man : with an infinite Love, an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, 
' wayward man ! Art thou not tried, and beaten with stripes, 
1 even as I am ? Ever, whether thou bear the royal mantle or 
' the beggar's gabardine, art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden; 
' and thy Bed of Rest is but a Grave. O my Brother, my Bro- 
' ther, why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away 
1 all tears from thy eyes ! — Truly, the din of many-voiced Life, 
1 which, in this solitude, with the mind's organ, I could hear, 
' was no longer a maddening discord, but a melting one ; like 
1 inarticulate cries, and sobbings of a dumb creature, which in 
' the ear of Heaven are prayers. The poor Earth, with her poor 
1 joys, was now my needy Mother, ' not my cruel Stepdame ; 
' Man, with his so mad Wants and so mean Endeavours, had 
' become the dearer to me ; and even for his sufferings and his 
' sins, I now first named him Brother. Thus was I standing in 
' the porch of that "Sanctuary of Sorrow /' by strange, steep 
' ways had I too been guided thither ; and ere long its sacred 

■ gates would open, and the "Divine Depth of Sorrow' lie dis- 

* closed to me.' 



chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 131 

The Professor says, he here first got eye on the Knot that 
had been strangling him, and straightway could unfasten it, and 
was free. 'A vain interminable controversy,' writes he, 'touch- 

* ing what is at present called Origin of Evil, or some such 

* thing, arises in every soul, since the beginning of the world ; 

* and in every soul, that would pass from idle Suffering into ac- 
' tual Endeavouring, must first be put an end to. The most, in 

* our time, have to go content with a simple, incomplete enough 

* Suppression of this controversy ; to a few some Solution of it 
' is indispensable. In every new era, too, such Solution comes- 
1 out in different terms ; and ever the Solution of the last era 

* has become obsolete, and is found unserviceable. For it is 

* man's nature to change his Dialect from century to centuiy ; 

* he cannot help it though he would. The authentic Church- 
i Catechism of our present century has not yet fallen into my 

* hands : meanwhile, for my own private behoof, I attempt to 
1 elucidate the matter so. Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, 
1 comes of his Greatness ; it is because there is an Infinite in 
' him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under 
8 the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers and Upholster- 
ers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake, in joint- 

1 stock company, to make one Shoeblack happy ? They cannot 
accomplish it, above an hour or two : for the Shoeblack also 
1 has a Soul quite other than his Stomach ; and would require, 

* if you consider it, for his permanent satisfaction and satura- 
tion, simply this allotment, no more, and no less : God's in- 

* finite Universe altogether to himself therein to enjoy infinitely, 
1 and fill every wish as fast as it rose. Oceans of Hochheimer, 

a Throat like that of Ophiuchus : speak not of them ; to the 
1 infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is your 

ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better 
1 vintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, 

* he sets to quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, arid 
8 declares himself the most maltreated of men. — Always there 
1 is a black spot in our sunshine : it is even, as I said, the 
1 Shadow of Ourselves. 

' But the whim we have of Happiness is somewhat thus. 
8 By certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we 
1 come upon some sort of average terrestrial lot ; this we fancy 

* belongs to us by nature, and of indefeasible right. It is simple 



132 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

1 payment of our wages, of our deserts ; requires neither thanks 
1 nor complaint ; only such overplus as there may be do we 
' account Happiness ; any deficit again is Misery. Now con- 
' sider that we have the valuation of our own deserts ourselves, 
' and what a fund of Self-conceit there is in each of us, — do you 
' wonder that the balance should so often dip the wrong way, 
1 and many a Blockhead cry : See there, what a payment ; was 

* ever worthy gentleman so used ! — I tell thee, Blockhead, it all 
1 comes of thy Vanity ; of what thou fanciest those same deserts 

* of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as is 
1 most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot : fancy 
1 that thou deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a 
' luxury to die in hemp. 

1 So true is it, what I then said, thaf the Fraction of Life can 
1 be iftcreased in value not so much by increasing your Numerator 
1 as by lessening your Denominator, Nay, unless my Algebra 
1 deceive me, Unity itself divided by Zero will give Infinity. 
1 Make thy claim of wages a zero, then ; thou hast the world 
1 under thy feet. Well did the Wisest of our time write : " It is 

* only with Renunciation (Entsagen) that Life, properly speak- 
1 ing, can be said to begin." 

1 I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, 

* thou hast been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self- 
1 tormenting, on account of? Say it in a word : is it not because 
' thou art not happy ? Because the Thou (sweet gentleman) is 

* not sufficiently honoured, nourished, soft-bedded, and lovingly 

* cared-for ? Foolish soul ! What Act of Legislature was there 
1 that thou shouldst be Happy ? A little while ago thou hadst 

* no right to be at all What if thou wert born and predestined 

* not to be Happy, but to be Unhappy ! Art thou nothing other 
1 than a Vulture, then, that fliest through the Universe seeking 
1 after somewhat to eat; and shrieking dolefully because carrion 

* enough is not given thee ? Close thy Byron j open thy Goetke. y 

1 Es leuchtet mir ein> I see a glimpse of it P cries he else- 
where : ' there is in man a Higher than Love of Happiness : 
' he can do without Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessed- 

* ness ! Was it not to preach-forth this same Higher that sages 
' and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest, in all times, have spoken 

* and suffered ; bearing testimony, through life and through 

* death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the Godlike 



■chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 233 

' only has he Strength and Freedom ? Which God-inspired 

* Doctrine art thou also honoured to be taught ; O Heavens ! 
1 and broken with manifold merciful Afflictions, even till thou 

* become contrite, and learn it ! O, thank thy Destiny for these ; 

* thankfully bear what yet remain : thou hadst need of them ; 

* the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By benignant fever- 
' paroxysms is Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Disease, 
' and triumphs over Death. On the roaring billows of Time, 
' thou art not engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of Eter- 

* nity. Love not Pleasure ; love God. This is the Everlasting 
1 Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved : wherein whoso walks 
1 and works, it is well with him.' 

And again : * Small is it that thou canst trample the Earth 
' with its injuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained 
' thee : thou canst love the Earth while it injures thee, and even 
1 because it injures thee ; for this a Greater than Zeno was 

* needed, and he too was sent. Knowest thou that " Worship 
1 of Sorrow" ? The Temple thereof, founded some eighteen cen- 
1 turies ago., now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habi- 
' tation of doleful creatures : nevertheless, venture forward ; in 

* a low crypt, arched out of falling fragments, thou findest the 
1 Altar still there, and its sacred Lamp perennially burning.' 

Without pretending to comment on which strange utter- 
ances, the Editor will only remark, that there lies beside them 
much of a still more questionable character ; unsuited to the 
general apprehension ; nay wherein he himself does not see 
his way. Nebulous disquisitions on Religion, yet not without 
bursts of splendour ; on the ' perennial continuance of Inspira- 
tion ;' on Prophecy ; that there are ' true Priests, as well as 
Baal-Priests, in our own day :' with more of the like sort. We 
select some fractions, by way of finish to this farrago. 

' Cease, my much-respected Herr von Voltaire,' thus apos- 
trophises the Professor : ' shut thy sweet voice ; for the task 

* appointed thee seems finished. Sufficiently hast thou demon- 
1 strated this proposition, considerable or otherwise : That the 
' Mythus of the Christian Religion looks not in the eighteenth 
' century as it did in the eighth. Alas, were thy six-and-thirty 
1 quartos, and the six-and-thirty. thousand other quartos and 

* folios, and flying sheets or reams, printed before and since on 

* the same subject, all needed to convince us of so little ! But 



134 SARTOR RES ARTUS. book n. 

' what next ? Wilt thou help us to embody the divine Spirit of 

* that Religion in a new Mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture, 
1 that our Souls, otherwise too like perishing, may live ? What ! 

* thou hast no faculty in that kind ? Only a torch for burning, 
1 no hammer for building ? Take our thanks, then, and 

* thyself away. 

1 Meanwhile what are antiquated Mythuses to me ? Or is 
the God present, felt in my own heart, a thing which Herr von 

* Voltaire will dispute out of me ; or dispute into me ? To the 
1 " Worship of Sorrow" ascribe what origin and genesis thou 

* pleasest, has not that Worship originated, and been generated ; 
4 is it not here f Feel it in thy lieart, and then say whether it is 
1 of God ! This is Belief ; all else is Opinion, — for which latter 
1 whoso will, let him worry and be worried.' 

1 Neither,' observes he elsewhere, 'shall ye tear-out one an- 
' other's eyes, struggling over " Plenary Inspiration," and such- 
1 like : try rather to get a little even Partial Inspiration, each 
1 of you for himself. One Bible I know, of whose Plenary In- 
1 spiration doubt is not so much as possible ; nay with my own 
1 eyes I saw the God's-Hand writing it : thereof all other Bibles 
' are but Leaves, — say, in Picture- Writing to assist the weaker 
' faculty.' 

Or, to give the wearied reader relief, and bring it to an end, 
let him take the following perhaps more intelligible passage : 

' To me, in this our life,' says the Professor, ' which is an 

* internecine warfare with the Time-spirit, other warfare seems 
' questionable. Hast thou in any way a Contention with thy 

* brother, I advise thee, think well what the meaning thereof is. 

* If thou gauge it to the bottom, it is simply this: "Fellow, 

* see ! thou art taking more than thy share of Happiness in the 

* world, something from 7ny share : which, by the Heavens, 
1 thou shalt not ; nay I will fight thee rather." — Alas, and the 

* whole lot to be divided is such a beggarly matter, truly a "feast 

* of shells," for the substance has been spilled out : not enough 

* to quench one Appetite ; and the collective human species 
\ clutching at them ! — Can we not, in all such cases, rather say : 

* " Take it, thou too-ravenous individual ; take that pitiful ad- 
' ditional fraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but which 
' thou so wantest ; take it with a blessing : would to Heaven I 

* had enough for thee!" — If Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre be, "to 



chap. IX. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 135 

1 a certain extent, Applied Christianity," surely to a still greater 

* extent, so is this. We have here not a Whole Duty of Man, 

* yet a Half Duty, namely the Passive half: could we but do it, 

* as we can demonstrate it ! 

1 But indeed Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worth- 

* less till it convert itself into Conduct. Nay properly Convic- 
1 tion is not possible till then ; inasmuch as all Speculation is 

* by nature endless, formless, a vortex amid vortices : only by a 

* felt indubitable certainty of Experience does it find any centre 
' to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a system. Most 
'. true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that " Doubt of any sort 
' cannot be removed except by Action." On which ground, too, 

* let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, 

* and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay 
1 this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable 
' service : "Do the Duty which lies nearest thee" which thou 

* knowest to be a Duty ! Thy second Duty will already have 
1 become clearer. 

' May we not say, however, that the hour of Spiritual Enfran- 
1 chisement is even this : When your Ideal World, wherein the 

* whole man has been dimly struggling and inexpressibly lan- 

* guishing to work, becomes revealed, and thrown open ; and 
1 you discover, with amazement enough, like the Lothario in 
' Wilhelm Meister, that your " America is here or nowhere"? 
' The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet 
' occupied by man. Yes here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, 
' despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or 

* nowhere is thy Ideal : work it out therefrom ; and working, 

* believe, live, be free. Fool ! the Ideal is in thyself, the im- 
1 pediment too is in thyself : thy Condition is but the stuff thou 
' art to shape that same Ideal out of : what matters whether 
1 such stuff be of this sort or that, so the Form thou give it be 
1 heroic, be poetic ? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment 

* of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom 
1 wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth : the thing thou 

* seekest is already with thee, "here or nowhere," couldst thou 
1 only see ! 

* But it is with man's Soul as it was with Nature : the be- 
1 ginning of Creation is — Light. " Till the eye have vision, the 
4 whole members are in bonds. Divine moment, when over 



136 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

1 the tempest-tost Soul, as once over the wild-weltering Chaos, 
1 it is spoken : Let there be Light ! Ever to the greatest that 
' has felt such moment, is it not miraculous and God-announc- 
' ing ; even as, under simpler figures, to the simplest and least. 
1 The mad primeval Discord is hushed ; the rudely-jumbled con- 
' nicting elements bind themselves into separate Firmaments : 
' deep silent rock-foundations are built beneath ; and the skyey 

* vault with its everlasting Luminaries above : instead of a dark 
' wasteful Chaos, we have a blooming, fertile, heaven-encom- 
' passed World. 

4 I too could now say to myself: Be no longer a Chaos, but 
1 a World, or even Worldkin. Produce ! Produce ! Were it 
1 but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce 

• it, in God's name ! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee : out 
1 with it, then. Up, up ! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, 
1 do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called Today ; 
1 for the Night cometh, wherein no man can work.' 



CHAPTER X. 

PAUSE. 

Thus have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily as, in 
such circumstances, might be, followed Teufelsdrockh through 
the various successive states and stages of Growth, Entangle- 
ment, Unbelief, and almost Reprobation, into a certain clearer 
state of what he himself seems to consider as Conversion. ' Blame 
1 not the word,' says he ; ' rejoice rather that such a word, signi- 
1 fying such a thing, has come to light in our modern Era, though 
■ hidden from the wisest Ancients. The Old World knew no- 

* thing of Conversion ; instead of an Ecce Ho?no, they had only 
' some Choice of Hercules. It was a new-attained progress in 
1 the Moral Development of man: hereby has the Highest come 
1 home to the bosoms of the most Limited ; what to Plato was 
4 but a hallucination, and to Socrates a chimera, is now clear 

* and certain to your Zinzendorfs, your Wesleys, and the poorest 

* of their Pietists and Methodists.' 

It is here, then, that the spiritual majority of Teufelsdrockh 
commences : we are henceforth to see him * work in well-doing/ 



chap. x. PAUSE. 137 

with the spirit and clear aims of a Man. He has discovered that 
the Ideal Workshop he so panted for is even this same Actual 
ill-furnished Workshop he has so long been stumbling in. He 
can say to himself: 'Tools? Thou hast no Tools? Why, there 
1 is not a Man, or a Thing, now alive but has tools. The basest 
1 of created animalcules, the Spider itself, has a spinning-jenny, 
' and warping-mill, and power-loom within its head : the stupid- 
' est of Oysters has a Papin's-Digester, with stone-and-lime house 
' to hold it in : every being that can live can do something : this 
' let him do, — Tools ? Hast thou not a Brain, furnished, fur- 

• nishable with some glimmerings of Light ; and three fingers to 
' hold a Pen withal ? Never since Aaron's Rod went out of 
' practice, or even before it, was there such a wonder-working 
1 Tool : greater than all recorded miracles have been performed 
' by Pens. For strangely in this so solid-seeming World, which 
1 nevertheless is in continual restless flux, it is appointed that 

• Sound, to appearance the most fleeting, should be the most con- 
1 tinuing of all things. The Word is well said to be omnipotent 
1 in this world ; man, thereby divine, can create as by a Fiat. 

• Awake, arise ! Speak forth what is in thee ; what God has 
' given thee, what the Devil shall not take away. Higher task 
' than that of Priesthood was allotted to no man : wert thou but 
« the meanest in that sacred Hierarchy, is it not honour enough 
' therein to spend and be spent ? 

1 By this Art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously degrade 

• into a handicraft,' adds Teufelsdrockh, ' have I thenceforth 

• abidden. Writings of mine, not inpleed known as mine (for 
1 what am If), have fallen, perhaps not altogether void, into 
' the mighty seed-field of Opinion ; fruits of my unseen sowing 
' gratify ingly meet me here and there. I thank the Heavens 
' that I have now found my Calling ; wherein, with or without 
1 perceptible result, I am minded diligently to persevere. 

4 Nay how knowest thou,' cries he, ' but this and the other 
' pregnant Device, now grown to be a world-renowned far-work- 

• ing Institution ; like a grain of right mustard-seed once cast 
1 into the right soil, and now stretching-out strong boughs to the 
1 four winds, for the birds of the air to lodge in, — may have been 

• properly my doing? Some one's doing, it without doubt was; 

• from some Idea, in some single Head, it did first of all take 
1 beginning: why not from some Idea in mine?' DoesTeufels- 



I $8 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

drockh here glance at that ' Society for the Conservation 
of Property {Eigenthums-conservirende Gesellschaft),' of which 
so many ambiguous notices glide spectre-like through these in- 
expressible Paper-bags? ' An Institution,' hints he, 'not unsuit- 
1 able to the wants of the time ; as indeed such sudden extension 
' proves : for already can the Society number, among its office- 
' bearers or corresponding members, the highest Names, if not 
' the highest Persons, in Germany, England, France ; and con- 
1 tributions, both of money and of meditation, pour in from all 

* quarters ; to, if possible, enlist the remaining Integrity of the 
1 world, and, defensively and with forethought, marshal it round 
' this Palladium.' Does Teufelsdrockh mean, then, to give him- 
self out as the originator of that so notable Eigenthums-conser- 
virende (' Owndom-conserving') Gesellschaft j and if so, what, 
in the Devil's name, is it ? He again hints : • At a time when 

* the divine Commandment, Thou shalt not steal, wherein truly, 
1 if well understood, is comprised the whole Hebrew Decalogue, 
' with Solon's and Lycurgus's Constitutions, Justinian's Pandects, 
1 the Code Napoleon, and all Codes, Catechisms, Divinities, 
' Moralities whatsoever, that man has hitherto devised (and en- 
' forced with Altar-fire and Gallows-ropes) for his social guid- 
1 ance : at a time, I say, when this divine Commandment has 
S ail-but faded away from the general remembrance ; and, with 
1 little disguise, a new opposite Commandment, Thou shalt steal, 

* is everywhere promulgated, — it perhaps behoved, in this uni- 
4 versal dotage and deliration, the sound portion of mankind to 

* bestir themselves and rally. When the widest and wildest 
1 violations of that divine right of Property, the only divine right 

* now extant or conceivable, are sanctioned and recommended 
' by a vicious Press, and the world has lived to hear it asserted 

* that we have no Property in our very Bodies, but only an acci- 
' dental Possession and Life-rent, what is the issue to be looked 

* for? Hangmen and Catchpoles may, by their noose-gins and 

* baited fall-traps, keep down the smaller sort of vermin ; but 
' what, except perhaps some such Universal Association, can 

* protect us against whole meat-devouring and man-devouring 

* hosts of Boa-constrictors? If, therefore, the more sequestered 
' Thinker have wondered, in his privacy, from what hand that 

* perhaps not ill-written Program in the Public Journals, with 
f its high Prize-Questions and so liberal Prizes, could have pro- 



chap. x. PAUSE. 139 

1 ceeded, — let him now cease such wonder; and, with undivided 
' faculty, betake himself to the Concurrent (Competition).' 

We ask : Has this same 'perhaps not ill- written Program? 
or any other authentic Transaction of that Property-conserving 
Society, fallen under the eye of the British Reader, in any Journal 
foreign or domestic ? If so, what are those Prize-Questions j 
what are the terms of Competition, and when and where ? No 
printed Newspaper-leaf, no farther light of any sort, to be met 
with in these Paper-bags ! Or is the whole business one other 
of those whimsicalities and perverse inexplicabilities, whereby 
Herr Teufelsdrockh, meaning much or nothing, is pleased so 
often to play fast-and-loose with us ? 

Here, indeed, at length, must the Editor give utterance to 
a painful suspicion, which, through late Chapters, has begun 
to haunt him ; paralysing any little enthusiasm that might still 
have rendered his thorny Biographical task a labour of love. 
It is a suspicion grounded perhaps on trifles, yet confirmed 
almost into certainty by the more and more discernible humor- 
istico-satirical tendency of Teufelsdrockh, in whom underground 
humours and intricate sardonic rogueries, wheel within wheel, 
defy all reckoning : a suspicion, in one word, that these Auto- 
biographical Documents are partly a mystification ! What if 
many a so-called Fact were little better than a Fiction ; if here 
we had no direct Camera-obscura Picture of the Professor's 
History ; but only some more or less fantastic Adumbration, 
symbolically, perhaps significantly enough, shadowing-forth the 
same ! Our theory begins to be that, in receiving as literally 
authentic what was but hieroglyphically so, Hofrath Heuschrecke, 
whom in that case we scruple not to name Hofrath Nose-of- 
Wax, was made a fool of, and set adrift to make fools of others. 
Could it be expected, indeed, that a man so known for impene- 
trable reticence as Teufelsdrockh, would all at once frankly un- 
lock his private citadel to an English Editor and a German 
Hofrath; and not rather deceptively inlock both Editor and 
Hofratti in the labyrinthic tortuosities and covered-ways of said 
citadel (having enticed them thither), to see, in his half-devilish 
way, how the fools would look ? 

Of one fool, however, the Herr Professor will perhaps find 
himself short. On a small slip, formerly thrown aside as blank, 



i4o SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

the ink being ail-but invisible, we lately notice, and with effort 
decipher, the following : ' What are your historical Facts ; still 

* more your biographical ? Wilt thou know a Man, above all a 
1 Mankind, by stringing-together beadrolls of what thou namest 
' Facts ? The Man is the spirit he worked in ; not what he 
1 did, but what he became. Facts are engraved Hierograms, 
1 for which the fewest have the key. And then how your Block- 

* head (Dummkopf) studies not their Meaning ; but simply 
' whether they are well or ill cut, what he calls Moral or Im- 
' moral ! Still worse is it with your Bungler (Pfiischer) : such 

* I have seen reading some Rousseau, with pretences of inter- 

* pretation ; and mistaking the ill-cut Serpent-of-Eternity for a 
1 common poisonous reptile.' Was the Professor apprehensive 
lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, might 
mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? 
For which reason it was to be altered, not without underhand 
satire, into a plainer Symbol ? Or is this merely one of his 
half-sophisms, haif-truisms, which if he can but set on the back 
of a Figure, he cares not whither it gallop ? "We say not with 
certainty ; and indeed, so strange is the Professor, can never 
say. If our suspicion be wholly unfounded, let his own ques- 
tionable ways, not our necessary circumspectness, bear the 
blame. 

But be this as it will, the somewhat exasperated and indeed 
exhausted Editor determines here to shut these Paper-bags for 
the present. Let it suffice that we know of Teufelsdrockh, so 
far, if ' not what he did, yet what he became :' the rather, as his 
character has now taken its ultimate bent, and no new revolu- 
tion, of importance, is to be looked for. The imprisoned Chry- 
salis is now a winged Psyche : and such, wheresoever be its 
flight, it will continue. To trace by wiiat complex gyrations 
(flights or involuntary waftings) through the mere external Life- 
element, Teufelsdrockh reaches his University Professorship, 
and the Psyche clothes herself in civic Titles, without altering 
her now fixed nature, — would be comparatively an unproductive 
task, were we even unsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a 
false and impossible one. His outward Biography, therefore, 
which, at the Blumine Lover' s-Leap, we saw churned utterly 
into spray-vapour, may hover in that condition, for aught that 
concerns us here. Enough that by survey of certain 'pools 



chap. x. PAUSE, 141 

and plashes,' we have ascertained its general direction ; do we 
not already know that, by one way and other, it has long since 
rained-down again into a stream ; and even now, at Weissnicht- . 
wo, flows deep and- still, fraught with the Philosophy of Clothes, 
and visible to whoso will cast eye thereon ? Over much in- 
valuable matter, that lies scattered, like jewels among quarry- 
rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs, we may have occasion to 
glance back, and somewhat will demand insertion at the right 
place : meanwhile be our tiresome diggings therein suspended. 

If now, before reopening the great Clothes- Volume, we ask 
what our degree of progress, during these Ten Chapters, has 
been, towards right understanding of the Clothes-Philosophy ', let 
not our discouragement become total. To speak in that old 
figure of the Hell-gate Bridge over Chaos, a few flying pontoons 
have perhaps been added, though as yet they drift straggling on 
the Flood ; how far they will reach, when once the chains are 
straightened and fastened, can, at present, only be matter of 
conjecture. 

So much we already calculate : Through many a little loop- 
hole, we have had glimpses into the internal world of Teufels- 
drockh ; his strange mystic, almost magic Diagram of the 
Universe, and how it was gradually drawn, is not henceforth 
altogether dark to us. Those mysterious ideas on' Time, which 
merit consideration, and are not wholly unintelligible with such, 
may by and by prove significant. Still more may his some- 
what peculiar view of Nature, the decisive Oneness he ascribes 
to Nature. How all Nature and Life are but one Garment, a 
'Living Garment/ woven and ever aweaving in the 'Loom of 
Time ;' is not here, indeed, the outline of a whole Clothes-Phi- 
losophy j at least the arena it is to work in ? Remark, too, that 
the Character of the Man, nowise without meaning in such 
a matter, becomes less enigmatic : amid so much tumultuous 
obscurity, almost like diluted madness, do not a certain in- 
domitable Defiance and yet a boundless Reverence seem to 
loom forth, as the two mountain-summits, on whose rock-strata 
all the rest were based and built ? 

Nay further, may we not say that Teufelsdrockh's Biography, 
allowing it even, as suspected, only a hieroglyphical truth, ex- 
hibits a man, as it v/ere preappointed for Clothes-Philosophy ? 
To look through the Shows of things into Things themselves 



142 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

he is led and compelled. The ■ Passivity' given him by birth 
is fostered by all turns of his fortune. Everywhere cast out, 
like oil out of water, from mingling in any Employment, in any 
public Communion, he has no portion but Solitude, and a life 
of Meditation. The whole energy of his existence is directed, 
through long years, on one task : that of enduring pain, if he 
cannot cure it. Thus everywhere do the Shows of things op- 
press him, withstand him, threaten him with fearfullest destruc- 
tion : only by victoriously penetrating into Things themselves 
can he find peace and a stronghold. But is not this same look- 
ing-through the Shows, or Vestures, into the Things, even the 
first preliminary to a Philosophy of Clothes ? Do we not, in 
all this, discern some beckonings towards the true higher pur- 
port of such a Philosophy ; and what shape it must assume 
with such a man, in such an era ? 

Perhaps in entering on Book Third, the courteous Reader 
is not utterly without guess whither he is bound : nor, let us 
hope, for all the fantastic Dream-Grottoes through which, as is 
our lot with Teufelsdrockh, he must wander, will there be want- 
ing between whiles some twinkling of a steady Polar Star. 



book third* 

CHAPTER I. 

INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 

As a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teufelsdrockh, 
from an early part of this Clothes-Volume, has more and more 
exhibited himself. Striking it was, amid all his perverse cloudi- 
ness, with what force of vision and of heart he pierced into the 
mystery of the World ; recognising in the highest sensible phe- 
nomena, so far as Sense went, only fresh or faded Raiment ; 
yet ever, under this, a celestial Essence thereby rendered visible : 
and while, on the one hand, he trod the old rags of Matter, 
with their tinsels, into the mire, he on the other everywhere 
exalted Spirit above all earthly principalities and powers, and 
worshipped it, though under the meanest shapes, with a true 
Platonic mysticism. What the man ultimately purposed by 
thus casting his Greek-fire into the general Wardrobe of the 
Universe ; what such, more or less complete, rending and burn- 
ing of Garments throughout the whole compass of Civilised 
Life and Speculation, should lead to ; the rather as he was no 
Adamite, in any sense, and could not, like Rousseau, recom- 
mend either bodily or intellectual Nudity, and a return to the 
savage state : all this our readers are now bent to discover ; 
this is, in fact, properly the gist and purport of Professor Teu- 
felsdrockh' s Philosophy of Clothes. 

Be it remembered, however, that such purport is here not 
so much evolved, as detected to lie ready for evolving. Wc 
are to guide our British Friends into the new Gold-country, 
and show them the mines ; nowise to dig-out and exhaust its 
wealth, which indeed remains for all time inexhaustible. Once 
there, let each dig for his own behoof, and enrich himself. 



144 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

Neither, in so capricious inexpressible a Work as this of 
the Professor's, can our course now more than formerly be 
straightforward, step by step, but at best leap by leap. Sig- 
nificant Indications stand-out here and there ; which for the 
critical eye, that looks both widely and narrowly, shape them- 
selves into some ground-scheme of a Whole : to select these 
with judgment, so that a leap from one to the other be possible, 
and (in our old figure) by chaining them together, a passable 
Bridge be effected : this, as heretofore, continues our only me- 
thod. Among such light-spots, the following, floating in much 
wild matter about Perfectibility, has seemed worth clutching at : 

' Perhaps the most remarkable incident in Modern History,' 
says Teufelsdrockh, ' is not the Diet of Worms, still less the 
■ Battle of Austerlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other Battle ; 
1 but an incident passed carelessly over by most Historians, 
1 and treated with some degree of ridicule by others : namely, 
1 George Fox's making to himself a suit of Leather. This man, 

* the first of the Quakers, and by trade a Shoemaker, was one 

* of those, to whom, under ruder or purer form, the Divine 
1 Idea of the Universe is pleased to manifest itself ; and, across 
' all the hulls of Ignorance and earthly Degradation, shine 
1 through, in unspeakable Awfulness, unspeakable Beauty, on 

* their souls : who therefore are rightly accounted Prophets, 
' God-possessed ; or even Gods, as in some periods it has 

* chanced. Sitting in his stall ; working on tanned hides, 
' amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a name- 
' less flood of rubbish, this youth had, nevertheless, a Living 
1 Spirit belonging to him ; also an antique Inspired Volume, 
' through which, as through a window, it could look upwards, 

* and discern its celestial Home. The task of a daily pair of 
' shoes, coupled even with some prospect of victuals, and an 

* honourable Mastership in Gordwainery, and perhaps the post 
' of Thirdborough in his hundred, as the crown of long faithful 
' sewing, — was nowise satisfaction enough to such a mind : but 

* ever amid the boring and hammering came tones from that 
' far country, came Splendours and Terrors ; for this poor 
1 Cordwainer, as we said, was a Man ; and the Temple of Im- 
| mensity, wherein as Man he had been sent to minister, was 

* full of holy mystery to him. 

1 The Clergy of the neighbourhood, the ordained Watchers 



CHAP. I. ' INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 145 

4 and Interpreters of that same holy mystery, listened with un- 
1 affected tedium to his consultations, and advised him, as the 
1 solution of such doubts, to ''drink beer and dance with the 

* girls." Blind leaders of the blind ! For what end were their 

* tithes levied and eaten ; for what were their shovel - hats 
1 scooped-out, and their surplices and cassock-aprons girt-on ; 
4 and such a church -repairing, and chaffering, and organing, 

* and other racketing, held over that spot of God's Earth, — if 
4 Man were but a Patent Digester, and the Belly with its ad- 
4 juncts the grand Reality ? Fox turned from them, with tears 
4 and a sacred scorn, back to his Leather-parings and his Bible. 

* Mountains of encumbrance, higher than yEtna, had been 
4 heaped over that Spirit : but it was a Spirit, and would not 
4 lie buried there. Through long days and nights of silent 
1 agony, it struggled and wrestled, with a man's force, to be 
4 free : how its prison-mountains heaved and swayed tumultu- 
4 ously, as the giant spirit shook them to this hand and that, 

* and emerged into the light of Heaven ! That Leicester shoe- 

* shop, had men known it, was a holier place than any Vatican 

* or Loretto-shrine. — " So bandaged, and hampered, and hem- 

* med in," groaned he, "with thousand requisitions, obligations, 
1 straps, tatters, and tagrags, I can neither see nor move : not 

* my own am I, but the World's ; and Time flies fast, and Hea- 

* ven is high, and Hell is deep : Man ! bethink thee, if thou 
4 hast power of Thought ! Why not ; what binds mejiere ? Want, 
1 want ! — Ha, of what ? Will all the shoe-wages under the 

Moon ferry me across into that far Land of Light ? Only 
' Meditation can, and devout Prayer to God. I will to the 
' woods : the hollow of a tree will lodge me, wild-berries feed 
1 me ; and for Clothes, cannot I stitch myself one perennial suit 
' of Leather 1" 

* Historical Oil-painting,' continues Teufelsdrockh, 'is one 
1 of the Arts I never practised ; therefore shall I not decide 

* whether this subject were easy of execution on the canvas. 

1 Yet often has it seemed to me as if such first outflashing of 

* man's Freewill, to lighten, more and more into Day, the Cha- 

* otic Night that threatened to engulf him in its hindrances and 
4 its horrors, were properly the only grandeur there is in His- 
4 tory. Let some living Angelo or Rosa, with seeing eye and 
4 understanding heart, picture George Fox on that morning, 

L 



146 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

1 when he spreads-out his cutting-board for the last time, and 
1 cuts cowhides by unwonted patterns, and stitches them to- 
' gether into one continuous all - including Case, the farewell 
1 service of his awl ! Stitch away, thou noble Fox : every prick 
1 of that little instrument is pricking into the heart of Slavery, 
1 and World-worship, and the Mammon-god. Thy elbows jerk, 
1 as in strong swimmer-strokes, and every stroke is bearing thee 
' across the Prison-ditch, within which Vanity holds her Work- 
1 house and Ragfair, into lands of true Liberty ; were the work 
f done, there is in broad Europe one Free Man, and thou art 
'he! 

1 Thus from the lowest depth there is a path to the loftiest 
' height ; and for the Poor also a Gospel has been published. 
1 Surely if, as D'Alembert asserts, my illustrious namesake, Dio- 
1 genes, was the greatest man of Antiquity, only that he wanted 
' Decency, then by stronger reason is George Fox the greatest 
' of the Moderns, and greater than Diogenes himself : for he 
' too stands on the adamantine basis of his Manhood, casting 
1 aside all props and shoars ; yet net, in half-savage Pride, un- 
' dervaluing the Earth ; valuing it rather, as a place to yield 
' him warmth and food, he looks Heavenward from his Earth, 
' and dwells in an element of Mercy and Worship, with a still 
' Strength, such as the Cynic's Tub did nowise witness. Great, 
' truly, was that Tub ; a temple from which man's dignity and 
' divinity was- scornfully preached abroad : but greater is the 
1 Leather Hull, for the same sermon was preached there, and 
1 not in Scorn but in Love.' 

George Fox's * perennial suit,' with all that it held, has been 
worn quite into ashes for nigh two centuries : why, in a dis- 
cussion on the Perfectibility of Society, reproduce it now ? Not 
out of blind sectarian partisanship : Teufelsdrockh himself is 
no Quaker; with all his pacific tendencies, did not we see him, 
in that scene at the North Cape, with the Archangel Smuggler, 
exhibit fire-arms ? 

For us, aware of his deep Sansculottism, there is more 
meant in this passage that meets the ear. At the same time, 
who can avoid smiling at the earnestness and Boeotian simplicity 
(if indeed there be not an underhand satire in it), with which 
that ' Incident' is here brought forward ; and, in the Professor's 



chap. ii. CHURCH-CLOTHES. 147 

ambiguous way, as clearly perhaps as he durst in Weissnichtwo, 
recommended to imitation ! Does Teufelsdrockh anticipate that, 
in this age of refinement, any considerable class of the com- 
munity, by way of testifying against the ' Mammon-god/ and 
escaping from what he calls 'Vanity's Workhouse and Ragfair,' 
where doubtless some of them are toiled and whipped and hood- 
winked sufficiently, — will sheathe themselves in close-fitting 
cases of Leather ? The idea is ridiculous in the extreme. Will 
Majesty lay aside its robes of state, and Beauty its frills and 
train-gowns, for a second-skin of tanned hide ? By which change 
Huddersfield and Manchester, and Coventry and Paisley, and 
the Fancy- Bazaar, were reduced to hungry solitudes ; and only 
Day and Martin could profit. For neither would Teufels- 
drockh' s mad daydream, here as we presume covertly intended, 
of levelling Society {levelling it indeed with a vengeance, into 
one huge drowned marsh !), and so attaining the political effects 
of Nudity without its frigorific or other consequences, — be 
thereby realised. Would not the rich man purchase a water- 
proof suit of Russia Leather ; and the high-born Belle step-forth 
in red or azure morocco, lined with shamoy : the black cowhide 
being left to the Drudges and Gibeonites of the world ; and so 
all the old Distinctions be reestablished ? 

Or has the Professor his own deeper intention ; and laughs 
in his sleeve at our strictures and glosses, which indeed are but 
a part thereof? 

CHAPTER II. 

CHURCH-CLOTHES. 

Not less questionable is his Chapter on Church- Clothes, 
which has the farther distinction of being the shortest in the 
Volume. We here translate it entire : 

' By Church-Clothes, it need not be premised that I mean 
' infinitely more than Cassocks and Surplices ; and do not at 
'* all mean the mere haberdasher Sunday Clothes that men go 

* to Church in. Far from it ! Church-Clothes are, in our vo- 
' cabulary, the Forms, the Vestures, under which men have at 
' various periods embodied and represented for themselves the 

* Religious Principle ; that is to say, invested the Divine Idea 



143 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

6 of the World with a sensible and practically active Body, so 
' that it might dwell among them as a living and life-giving 
1 Word. 

1 These are unspeakably the most important of all the ves- 
' tures and garnitures of Human Existence. They are first 
1 spun and woven, I may say, by that wonder of wonders, So- 
' CIETY ; for it is still only when "two or three are gathered 

* together," that Religion, spiritually existent, and indeed inde- 

* structible, however latent, in each, first outwardly manifests 

* itself (as with "cloven tongues of fire"), and seeks to be em- 

* bodied in a visible Communion and Church Militant. Mys- 

* tical, more than magical, is that Communing of Soul with 

* Soul, both looking heavenward : here properly Soul first speaks 
' with Soul ; for only in looking heavenward, take it in what 
' sense you may, not in looking earthward, does what we can 

* call Union, mutual Love, Society, begin to be possible. How 
1 true is that of Novalis : " It is certain, my Belief gains 
1 quite infinitely the moment I can convince another mind 
' thereof" ! Gaze thou in the face of thy Brother, in those eyes 

* where plays the lambent fire of Kindness, or in those where 

* rages the lurid conflagration of Anger ; feel how thy own so 
1 quiet Soul is straightway involuntarily kindled with the like, 

* and ye blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is all one 
' limitless confluent flame (of embracing Love, or of deadly- 
' grappling Hate) ; and then say what miraculous virtue goes 
1 out of man into man. But if so, through all the thick-plied 

* hulls of our Earthly Life ; how much more when it is of the 

* Divine Life we speak, and inmost Me is, as it were, brought 

* into contact with inmost Me ! 

' Thus was it that I said, the Church- Clothes are first spun 

* and woven by Society ; outward Religion originates by So- 
1 ciety, Society becomes possible by Religion. Nay, perhaps, 
4 every conceivable Society, past and present, may well be 
1 figured as properly and wholly a Church, in one or other of 
' these three predicaments : an audibly preaching and prophe- 
1 sying Church, which is the best ; second, a Church that strug- 

* gles to preach and prophesy, but cannot as yet, till its Pente- 

* cost come ; and third and worst, a Church gone dumb with 

* old age, or which only mumbles delirium prior to dissolution. 
' Whoso fancies that by Church is here meant Chapterhouses 



chap. ii. CHURCH-CLOTHES. 149 

' and Cathedrals, or by preaching and prophesying, mere speech 
' and chanting, let him,' says the oracular Professor, 'read on, 
' light of heart (getrosten Muthes). 

1 But with regard to your Church proper, and the Church- 
1 Clothes specially recognised as Church-Clothes, I remark, fear- 
' lessly enough, that without such Vestures and sacred Tissues 

* Society has not existed, and will not exist. For if Govern- 
1 ment is, so to speak, the outward Skin of the Body Politic, 
1 holding the whole together and protecting it ; and all your 
1 Craft -Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of hand or of 

* head, are the Fleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tis- 
1 sues (lying under such Skin), whereby Society stands and 
' works ; — then is Religion the inmost Pericardial and Nervous 
1 Tissue, which ministers Life and warm Circulation to the 

* whole. Without which Pericardial Tissue the Bones and 
' Muscles (of Industry) were inert, or animated only by a Gal- 
1 vanic vitality ; the Skin would become a shrivelled pelt, or 
1 fast-rotting raw-hide ; and Society itself a dead carcass, — de- 
' serving to be buried. Men were no longer Social, but Gre- 
1 garious ; which latter state also could not continue, but must 
' gradually issue in universal selfish discord, hatred, savage iso- 
' lation, and dispersion ; — whereby, as we might continue to 
1 say, the very dust and dead -body of Society would have eva- 

* porated and become abolished. Such, and so all-important, 
' all-sustaining, are the Church-Clothes to civilised or even to 
1 rational men. 

1 Meanwhile, in our era of the World, those same Church- 
' Clothes have gone sorrowfully out-at-elbows : nay, far worse, 
1 many of them have become mere hollow Shapes, or Masks, 
' under which no living Figure or Spirit any longer dwells ; but 
' only spiders and unclean beetles, in horrid accumulation, drive 
' their trade ; and the mask still glares on you with its glass- 
' eyes, in ghastly affectation of Life, — some generation-and-half 
' after Religion has quite withdrawn from it, and in unnoticed 
1 nooks is weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewith to re- 
1 appear, and bless us, or our sons or grandsons. As a Priest, 
1 or Interpreter of the Holy, is the noblest and highest of all 
' men, so is a Sham-priest (Schein-priester) the falsest and basest ; 
1 neither is it doubtful that his Canonicals, were they Popes' 
' Tiaras, will one day be torn from him, to make bandages for 



x 5 o SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

' the wounds of mankind ; or even to burn into tinder, for gene- 
' ral scientific or culinary purposes. 

' All which, as out of place here, falls to be handled in my 
f Second Volume, On the Palingenesia, or Newbirth of Society j 
1 which volume, as treating practically of the Wear, Destruc- 

* tion, and Retexture of Spiritual Tissues, or Garments, forms, 

* properly speaking, the Transcendental or ultimate Portion of 
1 this my work on Clothes, and is already in a state of forward- 
1 ness.' 

And herewith, no farther exposition, note, or commentary 
being added, does Teufelsdrockh, and must his Editor now, ter- 
minate the singular chapter on Church- Clothes ! 



CHAPTER III. 

SYMBOLS. 

Probably it will elucidate the drift of these foregoing ob- 
scure utterances, if we here insert somewhat of our Professor's 
speculations on Symbols. To state his whole doctrine, indeed, 
were beyond our compass : nowhere is he more mysterious, im- 
palpable, than in this of \ Fantasy being the organ of the God- 
1 like ;' and how ' Man thereby, though based, to all seeming, 
1 on the small Visible, does nevertheless extend down into the 
' infinite deeps of the Invisible, of which Invisible, indeed, his 
' Life is properly the bodying forth.' Let us, omitting these high 
transcendental aspects of the matter, study to glean (whether 
from the Paper-bags or the Printed. Volume) what little seems 
logical and practical, and cunningly arrange it into such degree 
of coherence as it will assume. By way of proem, take the 
following not injudicious remarks : 

4 The benignant efficacies of Concealment, ' cries our Pro- 
fessor, 'who shall speak or sing? Silence and Secrecy! 
1 Altars might still be raised to them (were this an altar-building 
' time) for universal worship. Silence is' the element in which 
* great things fashion themselves together ; that at length they 
1 may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of Life, 
1 which they are thenceforth to rule. Not William the Silent 
' only, but all the considerable men I have known, and the most 



chap. in. SYMfiOLS. 



151 



' undiplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore to babble of 
1 what they were creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own 
' mean perplexities, do thou thyself but hold thy to7tgue for 
1 one day : on the morrow, how much clearer are thy purposes 

* and duties ; what wreck and rubbish have those mute work- 
' men within thee swept away, when intrusive noises were shut 
' out ! Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman denned it, 
1 the art of concealing Thought ; but of quite stifling and sus- 

* pending Thought, so that there is none to conceal. Speech too 
' is great, but not the greatest. As the Swiss Inscription says : 

* Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden (Speech is silvern, 

* Silence is golden) ; or as I might rather express it : Speech is 
' of Time, Silence is of Eternity. 

' Bees will not work except in darkness ; Thought will not 
1 work except in Silence : neither will Virtue work except in 

* Secrecy. Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand 
' doeth ! Neither shalt thou prate even to thy own heart of 
' " those secrets known to all." Is not Shame (Schaam) the soil 

* of all Virtue, of all good manners and good morals? Like 
' other plants, Virtue will not grow unless its root be hidden, 
1 buried from the eye of the sun. Let the sun shine on it, nay 
1 do but look at it privily thyself, the root withers, and no flower 
1 will glad thee. O my Friends, when we view the fair clustering 

* flowers that overwreathe, for example, the Marriage -bower, 
1 and encircle man's life with the fragrance and hues of Heaven, 

* what hand will not smite the foul plunderer that grubs them 

* up by the roots, and with grinning, grunting satisfaction, shows 
1 us the dung they flourish in ! Men speak much of the Print- 
' ing-Press with its Newspapers : die Hiimnel I what are these 
t to Clothes and the Tailor's Goose ?' 

' Of kin to the so incalculable influences of Concealment, 
1 and connected with still greater things, is the wondrous agency 
' of Symbols. In a Symbol there is concealment and yet revela- 
' tion : here therefore, by Silence and by Speech acting together, 

* comes a double significance. And if both the Speech be itself 
t high, and the Silence fit and noble, how expressive will their 
' union be ! Thus in many a painted Device, or simple Seal- 

* emblem, the commonest Truth stands out to us proclaimed 
i with quite new emphasis. 

• For it is here that Fantasy with her mystic wonderland 



152 SARTOR RE3ARTUS. book in. 

' plays into the small prose domain of Sense, and becomes in- 
' corporated therewith. In the Symbol proper, what we can 
' call a Symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly. 

• some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite ; the Infinite 
' is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and 
' as it were, attainable there. By Symbols, accordingly, is man 
' guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched. He 
' everywhere finds himself encompassed with Symbols, recog- 
1 nised as such or not recognised : the Universe is but one 
1 vast Symbol of God ; nay if thou wilt have it, what is man 
' himself but a Symbol of God ; is not all that he does sym- 
' bolical ; a revelation to Sense of the mystic god-given force 
1 that is in him ; a " Gospel of Freedom," which he, the " Mes- 
' sias of Nature," preaches, as he can, by act and word? Not 

* a Hut he builds but is the visible embodiment of a Thought ; 
1 but bears visible record of invisible things ; but is, in the 
1 transcendental sense, symbolical as well as real.' 

' Man,' says the Professor elsewhere, in quite antipodal con- 
trast with these high-soaring delineations, which we have here 
cut-short on the verge of the inane, * Man is by birth somewhat 
1 of an owl. Perhaps, too, of all the owleries that ever pos- 
1 sessed him, the most owlish, if we consider it, is that of your 
' actually existing Motive-Millwrights. Fantastic tricks enough 
' man has played, in his time ; has fancied himself to be most 
' things, down even to an animated heap of Glass : but to fancy 
' himself a dead Iron-Balance for weighing Pains and Pleasures 
1 on, was reserved for this his latter era. There stands he, his 
' Universe one huge Manger, filled with hay and thistles to be 
' weighed against each other ; and looks long-eared enough. 
' Alas, poor devil ! spectres are appointed to haunt him : one 
' age he is hagridden, bewitched ; the next, priestridden, be- 
' fooled ; in all ages, bedevilled. And now the Genius of Me- 
' chanism smothers him worse than any Nightmare did ; till the 
1 Soul is nigh choked out of him, and only a kind of Digestive, 

* Mechanic life remains. In Earth and in Heaven he can see 
1 nothing but Mechanism ; has fear for nothing else, hope in 
' nothing else : the world would indeed grind him to pieces ; 
' but cannot he fathom the Doctrine of Motives, and cunningly 

• compute these, and mechanise them to grind the other way ? 

* Were he not, as has been said, purblinded by enehaet- 



chap. in. SYMBOLS. i S3 

1 ment, you had but to bid him open his eyes and look. In 

* which country, in which time, was it hitherto that man's his- 
' tory, or the history of any man, went-on by calculated or cal- 
1 culable " Motives" ? What make ye of your Christianities, 
1 and Chivalries, and Reformations, and Marseillese Hymns, 
' and Reigns of Terror ? Nay, has not perhaps the Motive- 

* grinder himself been in Love ? Did he never stand so much 

* as a contested Election ? Leave him to Time, and the medi- 
' eating virtue of Nature.' 

1 Yes, Friends,' elsewhere observes the Professor, 'not our 
' Logical, Mensurative faculty, but our Imaginative one is King 
' over us ; I might say, Priest and Prophet to lead us heaven- 

* ward ; or Magician and Wizard to lead us hellward. Nay, 
1 even for the basest Sensualist, what is Sense but the imple- 

* ment of Fantasy ; the vessel it drinks out of ? Ever in the 
1 dullest existence there is a sheen either of Inspiration or of 
1 Madness (thou partly hast it in thy choice, v/hich of the two), 
' that gleams -in from the circumambient Eternity, and colours 
' with its own hues our little islet of Time. The Understand- 
' ing is indeed thy window, too clear thou canst not make it ; 
1 but Fantasy is thy eye, with its colour -giving retina, healthy 

* or diseased. Have not I myself known five -hundred living 
' soldiers sabred into crows'-meat for a piece of glazed cotton, 
1 which they called their Flag ; which, had you sold it at any 
' market -cross, would not have brought above three groschen? 
' Did not the whole Hungarian Nation rise, like some tumultuous 
1 moon-stirred Atlantic, when Kaiser Joseph pocketed their Iron 

* Crown ; an implement, as was sagaciously observed, in size 

* and commercial value little differing from a horse-shoe ? It 
\ is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or uncon- 
1 sciously, lives, works, and has his being : those ages, moreover, 
1 are accounted the noblest which can the best recognise sym- 

* bolical worth, and prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol 
1 ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer reve- 
1 lation of the Godlike ? 

' Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that they have 

* both an extrinsic and intrinsic value ; oftenest the former 
' only. What, for instance, was in that clouted Shoe, which 
■ the Peasants bore aloft with them as ensign in their Bauern- 

* krieg (Peasants' War) ? Or in the Wallet-and-staff round 



154 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

* which the Netherland Gueux, glorying in that nickname of 
' Beggars, heroically rallied and prevailed, though against King 

* Philip himself ? Intrinsic significance these had none : only 
' extrinsic ; as the accidental Standards of multitudes more or 
' less sacredly uniting together ; in which union itself, as above 
' noted, there is ever something mystical and borrowing of the 

* Godlike. Under a like category, too, stand, or stood, the 
' stupidest heraldic Coats -of- arms; military Banners every- 

* where ; and generally all national or other sectarian Costumes 
1 and Customs : they have no intrinsic, necessary divineness, 
f or even worth ; but have acquired an extrinsic one. Never- 
' theless through all these there glimmers something of a 
' Divine Idea ; as through military Banners themselves, the 
' Divine Idea of Duty, of heroic Daring ; in some instances of 
? Freedom, of Right. Nay the highest ensign that men ever 

* met and embraced under, the Cross itself, had no meaning 

* save an accidental extrinsic one. 

' Another matter it is, however, when your Symbol has 
1 intrinsic meaning, and is of itself fit that men should unite 
1 round it. Let but the Godlike manifest itself to Sense ; let 
' but Eternity look, more or less visibly, through the Time- 

* Figure (Zeitbild) ! Then is it fit that men unite there ; and 
1 worship together before such Symbol ; and so from day to 
1 day, and from age to age, superadd to it new divineness. 

1 Of this latter sort are all true Works of Art : in them (if 
1 thou know a Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou 
' discern Eternity looking through Time ; the Godlike rendered 
1 visible. Here too may an extrinsic value gradually superadd 
' itself : thus certain Iliads, and the like, have, in three-thou- 
' sand years, attained quite new significance. But nobler than 
' all in this kind are the Lives of heroic god-inspired Men ; for 
' what other Work of Art is so divine? In Death too, in the 
f Death of the Just, as the last perfection of a Work of Art, 
' may we not discern symbolic meaning ? In that divinely trans- 
1 figured Sleep, as of Victory, resting over the beloved face which 
' now knows thee no more, read (if thou canst for tears) the 

* confluence of Time with Eternity, and some gleam of the 
' latter peering through. 

' Highest of ail Symbols are those wherein the Artist or 

* Poet has risen into Prophet, and all men can recognise a pre- 



chap. in. SYMBOLS. 155 

' sent God, and worship the same : I mean religious Symbols. 
' Various enough have been such religious Symbols, what we 
' call Religions ; as men stood in this stage of culture or the 
' other, and could worse or better body-forth the Godlike : some 
' Symbols with a transient intrinsic worth ; many with only 
' an extrinsic. If thou ask to what height man has carried it 
' in this manner, look on our divinest Symbol : on Jesus of 
i Nazareth, and his Life, and his Biography, and what followed 
' therefrom. Higher has the human Thought not yet reached : 
' this is Christianity and Christendom ; a Symbol of quite per- 
' ennial, infinite character ; whose significance will ever demand 
' to be anew inquired into, and anew made manifest. 

f But, on the whole, as Time adds much to the sacredness 

* of Symbols, so likewise in his progress he at length defaces, 
1 or even desecrates them ; and Symbols, like all terrestrial 
' Garments, wax old. Homer's Epos has not ceased to be 
' true ; yet it is no longer our Epos, but shines in the distance, 
' if clearer and clearer, yet also smaller and smaller, like a 
1 receding Star. It needs a scientific telescope, it needs to be 
' reinterpreted and artificially brought near us, before we can 
1 so much as know that it was a Sun. So likewise a day comes 

* when the Runic Thor, with his Eddas, must withdraw into dim- 
1 ness ; and many an African Mumbo-Jumbo and Indian Pawaw 
' be utterly abolished. For all things, even Celestial Lumina- 
' ries, much more atmospheric meteors, have their rise, their 
1 culmination, their decline.' 

* Small is this which thou tellest me, that the Royal Sceptre 
1 is but a piece of gilt-wood ; that the Pyx has become a most 

* foolish box, and truly, as Ancient Pistol thought, "of little 

* price." A right Conjuror might I name thee, couldst thou 
1 conjure back into these wooden tools the divine virtue they 

* once held.' 

' Of this thing, however, be certain : wouldst thou plant for 
' Eternity, then plant into the deep infinite faculties of man, 
1 his Fantasy and Heart ; wouldst thou plant for Year and Day, 
1 then plant into his shallow superficial faculties, his Self-love 
1 and Arithmetical Understanding, what will grow there. A 
1 Hierarch, therefore, and Pontiff of the World will we call him, 
■ the Poet and inspired Maker ; who, Prometheus-like, can shape 
4 new Symbols, and bring new Fire from Heaven to fix it there, 



156 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

1 Such too will not always be wanting ; neither perhaps now 
' are. Meanwhile, as the average of matters goes, we account 
' him Legislator and wise who can so much as tell when a Sym- 
' bol has grown old, and gently remove it. 

' When, as the last English Coronation 1 was preparing,' 
concludes this wonderful Professor, ' I read in their Newspapers 
' that the " Champion of England," he who has to offer battle 
1 to the Universe for his new King, had brought it so far that 
' he could now " mount his horse with little assistance," I said 

• to myself : Here also we have a Symbol well-nigh superannu- 
1 ated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters 
' and rags of superannuated worn-out Symbols (in this Ragfair 

• of a World) dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, 
' to tether you ; nay, if you shake them not aside, threatening 

• to accumulate, and perhaps produce suffocation ?' 



CHAPTER IV. 

HELOTAGE. 

At this point we determine en adverting shortly, or rather 
reverting, to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled 
Institute for the Repression of Population j which lies, dishon- 
ourably enough (with torn leaves, and a perceptible smell of 
aioetic drugs), stuffed into the Bag Pisces. Not indeed for the 
sake of the Tract itself, which we admire little ; but of the mar- 
ginal Notes, evidently in Teufelsdrockh's hand, which rather 
copiously fringe it. A few of these may be in their right place 
here. 

Into the Hofrath' s Institute, with its extraordinary schemes, 
and machinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall 
not so much as glance. Enough for us to understand that Heu- 
schrecke is a disciple of Malthus ; and so zealous for the doc- 
trine, that his zeal almost literally eats him up. A deadly fear 
of Population possesses the Hofrath ; something like a fixed- 
idea ; undoubtedly akin to the more diluted forms of Madness. 
Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual world, is there light ; 

1 That of George IV.— Ed. 



chap. iv. HELOTAGE. 157 

nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger ; open mouths opening 
wider and wider ; a world to terminate by the frightfullest con- 
summation : by its too dense inhabitants, famished into deli- 
rium, universally eating one another. To make air for himself 
in which strangulation, choking enough to a benevolent heart, 
the Hofrath founds, or proposes to found, this Institute of his, 
as the best he can do. It is only with our Professor's comments 
thereon that we concern ourselves. 

First, then, remark that Teufelsdrockh, as a speculative 
Radical, has his own notions about human dignity ; that the 
Zahdarm palaces and courtesies have not made him forgetful 
of the Futteral cottages. On the blank cover of Heuschrecke's 
Tract we find the following indistinctly engrossed : 

' Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toilworn 
' Craftsman that with earth-made Implement laboriously con- 

* quers the Earth, and makes her man's. Venerable to me is 
' the hard Hand ; crooked, coarse ; wherein notwithstanding 

* lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of 
' this Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all weather- 
' tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence ; for it is the face 
' of a Man living manlike. O, but the more venerable for thy 
1 rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee ! 
1 Hardly-entreated Brother ! For us was thy back so bent, for 
1 us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed : thou wert 

* our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles 
' wert so marred. For in thee too lay a god-created Form, but 
' it was not to be unfolded ; encrusted must it stand with the 
' thick adhesions and defacements of Labour : and thy body, 
' like thy soul, was not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on : 
' thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may ; thou toilest for 

* the altogether indispensable, for daily bread. 

' A second man I honour, and still more highly : Flim who 
1 is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable ; not daily bread, 
1 but the bread of Life. Is not he too in his duty ; endeavour- 
1 ing towards inward Harmony ; revealing this, by act or by 
f word, through all his outward endeavours, be they high or 

* low? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward endea- 
1 vour are one : when we can name him Artist ; not earthly 

* Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made 
' Implement conquers Heaven for us ! If the poor and humble 



158 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

' toil that we have Food, must net the high and glorious toil 
' for him in return, that he have Light, have Guidance, Free- 
' dom, Immortality ? — These two, in all their degrees, I honour : 
1 all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it 
1 listeth. 

' Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dig- 
' nities united ; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest 
1 of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sub- 
1 limer in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, 
' could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one will take 
' thee back to Nazareth itself ; thou wilt see the spleadour of 
4 Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like 

* a light shining in great darkness.' 

And again : ' It is not because of his toils that I lament for 
' the poor : we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our 
4 stealing), which is worse ; no faithful workman finds his task 
4 a pastime. The poor is hungry and athirst ; but for him also 

* there is food and drink : he is heavy-laden and weary ; but for 
' him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of the deepest ; in his 
' smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelops him, and 
4 fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn 

* over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out ; that no ray 
1 of heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him ; 
' but only, in the haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and 
' Indignation bear him company. Alas, while the Body stands 

* so broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stu- 
' pefled, almost annihilated ! Alas, was this too a Breath of 
4 God ; bestowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded ! 
4 — That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity 

* for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more 

* than twenty times in the minute, as by some computations it 

* does. The miserable fraction of Science which our united 
4 Mankind, in a wide Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why 
4 is not this, with all diligence, imparted to all ?' 

Quite in an opposite strain is the following : * The old Spar- 
4 tans had a wiser method ; and went out and hunted-down their 
4 Helots, and speared and spitted them, when they grew too 
4 numerous. With our improved fashions of hunting, Herr Hof- 
4 rath, now after the invention of fire-arms, and standing-armies, 
' how much easier were such a hunt ! Perhaps in the most 



chap. iv. HELOTAGE. a $9 

* thickly-peopled country, some three days annually might suf- 
' fice to shoot all the able-bodied Paupers that had accumulated 

* within the year. Let Governments think of this. The expense 
' were trifling : nay the very carcasses would pay it. Have them 
' salted and barrelled ; could not you victual therewith, if not 
' Army and Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers, in work- 
1 houses and elsewhere, as enlightened Charity, dreading no evil 
1 of them, might see good to keep alive ?' 

'And yet,' writes he farther on, 'there must be something 
■ wrong. A full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from 
1 twenty to as high as two-hundred Friedrichs d'or : such is his 
' worth to the world. A full-formed Man is not only worth no- 
' thing to the world, but the world could afford him a round 
' sum would he simply engage to go and hang himself. Never- 
' theless, which of the two was the more cunningly - devised 
1 article, even as an Engine ? Good Heavens ! A white Euro- 
1 pean Man, standing on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered 
' Hands at his shackle-bones, and miraculous Head on his shoul- 
' ders, is worth, I should say, from fifty to a hundred Horses !' 

' True, thou Gold-Hofrath,' cries the Professor elsewhere : 
' too crowded indeed ! Meanwhile, what portion of this incon- 
1 siderable terraqueous Globe have ye actually tilled and delved, 
' till it will grow no more ? How thick stands your Population 
1 in the Pampas and Savannas of America ; round ancient Car- 
' thage, and in the interior of Africa ; on both slopes of the 

* Altaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia ; in Spain, Greece, 
' Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare ? One man, in 
' one year, as I have understood it, if you lend him Earth, will 
' feed himself and nine others. Alas, where now are the Hengsts 
' and Alarics of our still-glowing, still-expanding Europe ; who, 

* when their home is grown too narrow, will enlist, and, like 
1 Fire-pillars, guide onwards those superfluous masses of indo- 
' mitable living Valour ; equipped, not now with the battle-axe 
1 and war-chariot, but with the steam-engine and ploughshare ? 

* Where are they ? — Preserving their Game l' 



*$r> SARTOR RES ARTUS. book m. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE PHCENIX. 

Putting which four singular Chapters together, and along- 
side of them numerous hints, and even direct utterances, scat- 
tered over these Writings of his, we come upon the startling 
yet not quite unlooked-for conclusion, that Teufelsdrockh is one 
of those who consider Society, properly so called, to be as good 
as extinct ; and that only the gregarious feelings, and old in- 
herited habitudes, at this juncture, hold us from Dispersion, and 
universal national, civil, domestic and personal war ! He says 
expressly : ' For the last three centuries, above all for the last 

* three quarters of a century, that same Pericardial Nervous 
1 Tissue (as we named it) of Religion, where lies the Life- 
' essence of Society, has been smote-at and perforated, need- 

* fully and needlessly ; till now it is quite rent into shreds ; and 
' Society, long pining, diabetic, consumptive, can be regarded 
' as defunct ; for those spasmodic, galvanic sprawlings are not 

* life ; neither indeed will they endure, galvanise as you may, 

* beyond two days.' 

* Call ye that a Society,' cries he again, 'where there is no 
1 longer any Social Idea extant ; not so much as the Idea of a 
1 common Home, but only of a common over-crowded Lodging- 
4 house ? Where each, isolated, regardless of his neighbour, 
' turned against his neighbour, clutches what he can get, and 
1 cries "Mine!" and calls it Peace, because, in the cut-purse 
1 and cut-throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cun- 
■ ninger sort, can be employed ? Where Friendship, Commu- 
' nion, has become an incredible tradition ; and your holiest 
1 Sacramental Supper is a smoking Tavern Dinner, with Cook 
1 for Evangelist? Where your Priest has no tongue but for plate- 
1 licking : and your high Guides and Governors cannot guide ; 
1 but on all hands hear it passionately proclaimed : Laissezfaire; 
1 Leave us alone oi your guidance, such light is darker than 
1 darkness ; eat you your wages, and sleep ! 

1 Thus, too,' continues he, 'does an observant eye discern 
' everywhere that saddest spectacle : The Poor perishing, like 
1 neglected, foundered Draught- Cattle, of Hunger and Over- 



chap. v. THE PHCENIX. 161 

' work ; the Rich, still more wretchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, 
' and Over-growth. The Highest in rank, at length, without 
' honour from the Lowest ; scarcely, with a little mouth-honour, 
1 as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in the bill. Once- 

* sacred Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof men 
' grudge even the expense ; a World becoming dismantled : in 
' one word, the Church fallen speechless, from obesity and 
' apoplexy ; the State shrunken into a Police-Office, straitened 

* to get its pay !' 

We might ask, are there many * observant eyes,' belonging 
to practical men in England or elsewhere, which have descried 
these phenomena ; or is it only from the mystic elevation of a 
German Wahngasse that such wonders are visible ? Teufels- 
drockh contends that the aspect of a ' deceased or expiring 
Society' fronts us everywhere, so that whoso runs may read. 
' What, for example,' says he, ' is the universally- arrogated 

* Virtue, almost the sole remaining Catholic Virtue, of these 
1 days ? For some half century, it has been the thing you name 

* " Independence." Suspicion of " Servility," of reverence for 

* Superiors, the very dogleech is anxious to disavow. Fools ! 
' Were your Superiors worthy to govern, and you worthy to 
' obey, reverence for them were even your only possible free- 
1 dom. Independence, in all kinds, is rebellion ; if unjust re- 
1 bellion, why parade it, and everywhere prescribe it ?' 

But what then ? Are we returning, as Rousseau prayed, to 
the state of Nature? 'The Soul Politic having departed,' says 
Teufelsdrockh, ' what can follow but that the Body Politic be 
1 decently interred, to avoid putrescence ? Liberals, Econo- 
' mists, Utilitarians enough I see marching with its bier, and 
1 chanting loud pseans, towards the funeral-pile, where, amid 
1 wailings from some, and saturnalian revelries from the most, 
1 the venerable Corpse is to be burnt. Or, in plain words, that 
1 these men, Liberals, Utilitarians, or whatsoever they are called, 
1 will ultimately carry their point, and dissever and destroy most 
' existing Institutions of Society, seems a thing which has some 
1 time ago ceased to be doubtful. 

1 Do we not see a little subdivision of the grand Utilitarian 

* Armament come to light even in insulated England ? A living 
' nucleus, that will attract and grow, does at length appear there 
1 also ; and under curious phasis ; properly as the inconsiderable 

M 



1 62 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

* fag-end, and so far in the rear of the others as to fancy itself 

* the van. Our European Mechanisers are a sect of boundless 
1 diffusion, activity, and cooperative spirit : has not Utilitarian- 
4 ism flourished in high places of Thought, here among our- 
' selves, and in every European country, at some time or other, 
' within the last fifty years ? If now in all countries, except 
' perhaps England, it has ceased to flourish, or indeed to exist, 
4 among Thinkers, and sunk to journalists and the popular 
' mass, — who sees not that, as hereby it no longer preaches, 
4 so the reason is, it now needs no Preaching, but is in full 
' universal Action, the doctrine everywhere known, and enthu- 
4 siastically laid to heart ? The fit pabulum, in these times, 
4 for a certain rugged workshop intellect and heart, nowise 
4 without their corresponding workshop strength and ferocity, 
4 it requires but to be stated in such scenes to make proselytes 
4 enough. — Admirably calculated for destroying, only not for 
1 rebuilding ! It spreads like a sort of Dog-madness ; till the 
4 whole World-kennel will be rabid : then woe to the Huntsmen, 
4 with or without their whips ! They should have given the 
4 quadrupeds water,' adds he; 'the water, namely, of Know- 
4 ledge and of Life, while it was yet time.' 

Thus, if Professor Teufelsdrockh can be relied on, we are 
at this hour in a most critical condition ; beleaguered by that 
boundless ' Armament of Mechanisers' and Unbelievers, threat- 
ening to strip us bare! 'The World/ says he, 'as it needs 
4 must, is under a process of devastation and waste, which, 
4 whether by silent assiduous corrosion, or open quicker com- 
' bustion, as the case chances, will effectually enough annihilate 
4 the past Forms of Society ; replace them with what it may. 
' For the present, it is contemplated that when man's whole 
4 Spiritual Interests are once divested, these innumerable stript- 
4 off Garments shall mostly be burnt ; but the sounder Rags 
4 among them be quilted together into one huge Irish watch- 
4 coat for the defence of the Body only i' — This, we think, is 
but Job's-news to the humane reader. 

'Nevertheless,' cries Teufelsdrockh, 'who can hinder it; 
' who is there that cam clutch into the wheelspokes of Destiny, 
' and say to the Spirit of the Time : Turn back, I command 
' thee ? — Wiser were it that we yielded to the Inevitable and 
1 Inexorable, and accounted even this the best.' 



chap. v. THE PHCENIX. 163 

Nay, might not an attentive Editor, drawing his own infer- 
ences from what stands written, conjecture that Teufelsdrockh 
individually had yielded to this same ' Inevitable and Inexor- 
able' heartily enough ; and now sat waiting the issue, with his 
natural diabolico-angelical Indifference, if not even Placidity ? 
Did we not hear him complain that the World was a ' huge 
Ragfair,' and the 'rags and tatters of old Symbols' were rain- 
ing-down everywhere, like to drift him in, and suffocate him ? 
What w£th those ' unhunted Helots' of his ; and the uneven 
sic vos non vobis pressure and hard-crashing collision he is 
pleased to discern in existing things ; what with the so hateful 
' empty Masks,' full of beetles and spiders, yet glaring out on 
him, from their glass eyes, 'with a ghastly affectation of life,' — 
we feel entitled to conclude him even willing that much should 
be thrown to the Devil, so it were but done gently ! Safe him- 
self in that 'Pinnacle of Weissnichtwo,' he would consent, with 
a tragic solemnity, that the monster Utilitaria, held back, 
indeed, and moderated by nose-rings, halters, foot-shackles, and 
every conceivable modification of rope, should go forth to do 
her work ; — to tread down old ruinous Palaces and Temples 
with her broad hoof, till the whole were trodden down, that new 
and better might be built ! Remarkable in this point of view- 
are the following sentences. 

'Society,' says he, 'is not dead: that Carcass, which you 
' call dead Society, is but her mortal coil which she has shuffled- 
1 off, to assume a nobler ; she herself, through perpetual meta- 
e morphoses, in fairer and fairer development, has to live till 
' Time also merge in Eternity. "Wheresoever two or three 
' Living Men are gathered together, there is Society ; or there 

• it will be, with its cunning mechanisms and stupendous struc- 
4 tures, overspreading this little Globe, and reaching upwards 
' to Pleaven and downwards to Gehenna: for always, under one 

• or the other figure, it has two authentic Revelations, of a God 
1 and of a Devil ; the Pulpit, namely, and the Gallows.' 

Indeed, we already heard him speak of ' Religion, in un- 
noticed nooks, weaving for herself new Vestures ;' — Teufels- 
drockh himself being one of the loom-treadles ? Elsewhere he 
quotes without censure that strange aphorism of Saint-Simon's, 
concerning which and whom so much were to be said : ' Edge 

• d'07; qiitim aveugle tradition a place ' jusqu'ici dans le passe, est 



1 64 SARTOR RES ARTUS. book in. 

1 deva,7it nous; The golden age, which a blind tradition has 
' hitherto placed in the Past, is Before us.' — But listen again : 
1 When the Phcenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there 
1 not be sparks flying ! Alas, some millions of men, ai>d among 
1 them such as a Napoleon, have already been licked into that 
1 high-eddying Flame, and like moths consumed there. Still 

* also have we to fear that incautious beards will get singed. 

1 For the rest, in what year of grace such Phcenix-cremation 
' will be completed, you need not ask. The law of Persever- 
1 ance is among the deepest in man : by nature he hates change ; 
1 seldom will he quit his old house till it has actually fallen about 

* his ears. Thus have I seen Solemnities linger as Ceremonies, 

* sacred Symbols as idle Pageants, to the extent of three-hun- 
1 dred years and more after all life and sacredness had evapor- 
1 ated out of them. And then, finally, what time the Phcenix 
1 Death-Birth itself will require, depends on unseen contingen- 
' cies. — Meanwhile, would Destiny offer Mankind, that after, 
' say two centuries of convulsion and conflagration, more or 
1 less vivid, the fire-creation should be accomplished, and we 
1 to find ourselves again in a Living Society, and no longer 

* fighting but working, — were it not perhaps prudent in Man- 

* kind to strike the bargain ?' 

Thus is Teufelsdrockh content that old sick Society should 
be deliberately burnt (alas, with quite other fuel than spice- 
wood) ; in the faith that she is a Phcenix ; and that a new 
heavenborn young one will rise out of her ashes! We ourselves, 
restricted to the duty of Indicator, shall forbear commentary. 
Meanwhile, will not the judicious reader shake his head, and 
reproachfully, yet more in sorrow than in anger, say or think : 
From a Doctor utriusque Juris, titular Professor in a Uni- 
versity, and man to whom hitherto, for his services, Society, 
bad as she is, has given not only food and raiment (of a kind), 
but books, tobacco and gukguk, we expected more gratitude to 
his benefactress ; and less of a blind trust in the future, which 
resembles that rather of a philosophical Fatalist and Enthu- 
siast, than of a solid householder paying scot-and-lot in a Chris- 
tian country. 



CHAP. vi. OLD CLOTHES. 165 



CHAPTER VI. 

OLD CLOTHES. 

As mentioned above, Teufelsdrockh, though a sansculottist, 
is in practice probably the politest man extant : his whole heart 
and life are penetrated and informed with the spirit of polite- 
ness ; a noble natural Courtesy shines through him, beautifying 
his vagaries ; like sun-light, making a rosy-fingered, rainbows- 
dyed Aurora out of mere aqueous clouds ; nay brightening 
London-smoke itself into gold vapour, as from the crucible of 
an alchemist. Hear in what earnest though fantastic wise he 
expresses himself on this head : 

1 Shall Courtesy be done only to the rich, and only by the 
1 rich ? In Good-breeding, which differs, if at all, from High- 
1 breeding, only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, 

* rather than gracefully insists on its own rights, I discern no 

* special connexion with wealth or birth : but rather that it lies 
' in human nature itself, and is due from ail men towards all 
1 men. Of a truth, were your Schoolmaster at his post, and 
' worth anything when there, this, with so much else, would be 
' reformed. Nay, each man were then also his neighbour's 
' schoolmaster ; till at length a rude-visaged, unmannered Pea- 
' sant could no more be met with, than a Peasant unacquainted 
' with botanical Physiology, or who felt not that the clod he 
' broke was created in Heaven. 

' For whether thou bear a sceptre or a sledge-hammer, art 
'■ not thou alive ; is not this thy brother alive ? " There is 
1 but one temple in the world," says Novalis, "and that temple 

* is the Body of Man. Nothing is holier than this high Form. 
1 Bending before men is a reverence done to this Revelation in 
' the Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our hands on a 
1 human Body." 

* On which ground, I would fain carry it farther than most 
1 do ; and whereas the English Johnson 'only bowed to every 
■ Clergyman, or man with a shovel-hat, I would bow to every 

* Man with any sort of hat, or with no hat whatever. Is not he 
1 a Temple, then ; the visible Manifestation and Impersonation 

* of the Divinity ? And yet, alas, such indiscriminate bowing 



1 66 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi, 

f serves not. For there is a Devil dwells in man, as well as a 
' Divinity ; and too often the bow is but pocketed by the former. 
' It would go to the pocket of Vanity (which is your clearest 
' phasis of the Devil, in these times) ; therefore must we with- 
' hold it. 

'The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do reverence to 

■ those Shells and outer Husks of the Body, wherein no devil- 
' ish passion any longer lodges, but only the pure emblem and 
' efngies of Man : I mean, to Empty, or even to Cast Clothes. 

• Nay, is it not to Clothes that most men do reverence : to the 

• fine frogged broadcloth, nowise to the "straddling animal with 

■ bandy legs" which it holds, and makes a Dignitary of? Who 
1 ever saw any Lord my -lorded in tattered blanket fastened 

• with wooden skewer ? Nevertheless, I say, there is in such 
1 worship a shade of hypocrisy, a practical deception : for how 
1 often does the Body appropriate what was meant for the Cloth 
' only ! Whoso would avoid falsehood, which is the essence of 
4 all Sin, will perhaps see good to take a different course. That 
' reverence which cannot act without obstruction and perversion 
' when the Clothes are full, may have free course when they are 
' empty. Even as, for Hindoo Worshippers, the Pagoda is not 
' less sacred than the God ; so do I too worship the hollow 
' cloth Garment with equal fervour, as when it contained the 
1 Man : nay, with more, for I now fear no deception, of myself 
1 or of others. 

' Did not King Toomtabard, or, in other words, John Baliol, 
1 reign long over Scotland ; the man John Baliol being quite 
' gone, and only the " Toom Tabard" (Empty Gown) remain- 
1 ing ? What still dignity dwells in a suit of Cast Clothes ! 
' How meekly it bears its honours ! No haughty looks, no scorn- 
' ful gesture : silent and serene, it fronts the world ; neither de- 
' manding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The Hat still carries 
' the physiognomy of its Head : but the vanity and the stupi- 

• dity, and goose-speech which was the sign of these two, are 
' gone. The Coat-arm is stretched out, but not to strike ; the 
' Breeches, in modest simplicity, depend at ease, and now at 

• last have a graceful flow ; the Waistcoat hides no evil passion, 

• no riotous desire ; hunger or thirst now dwells not in it. Thus 
1 all is purged from the grossness of sense, from the carking 

• cares and foul vices of the World ; and rides there, on its 



chap. vi. OLD CLOTHES. 167 

' Clothes-horse ; as, on a Pegasus, might some skyey Messenger, 
1 or purified Apparition, visiting our low Earth. 

1 Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tuberosity of 
' Civilised Life, the Capital of England ; and meditated, and 
' questioned Destiny, under that ink-sea of vapour, black, thick, 
4 and multifarious as Spartan broth ; and was one lone soul 
1 amid those grinding millions ; — often have I turned into their 
1 Old-Clothes Market to worship. With awe-struck heart I walk 
1 through that Monmouth Street, with its empty Suits, as through 
1 a Sanhedrim of stainless Ghosts. Silent are they, but expres- 
1 sive in their silence : the past witnesses and instruments of 
1 Woe and Joy, of Passions, Virtues, Crimes, and all the fathom- 
1 less tumult of Good and Evil in "the Prison men call Life." 
1 Friends ! trust not the heart of that man for whom Old Clothes 
' are not venerable. Watch, too, with reverence, that bearded 
' Jewish High-priest, who with hoarse voice, like some Angel of 

* Doom, summons them from the four winds ! On his head, 
'like the Pope, he has three Hats, — a real triple tiara; on 
1 either hand are the similitude of wings, whereon the summoned 
1 Garments come to alight ; and ever, as he slowly cleaves the 
' air, sounds forth his deep fateful note, as if through a trumpet 
1 he were proclaiming : " Ghosts of Life, come to Judgment !" 
' Reck not, ye fluttering Ghosts : he will purify you in his Pur- 

* gatory, with fire and with water ; and, one day, new-created 
1 ye shall reappear. O, let him in whom the flame of Devotion 

* is ready to go out, who has never worshipped, and knows not 

* what to worship, pace and repace, with austerest thought, the 
' pavement of Monmouth Street, and say whether his heart and 
1 his eyes still continue dry. If Field Lane, with its long flut- 
1 tering rows of yellow handkerchiefs, be a Dionysius' Ear, 
1 where, in stifled jarring hubbub, we hear the Indictment which 
1 Poverty and Vice bring against lazy Wealth, that it has left 
« them there cast-out and trodden under foot of Want, Dark- 
« ness and the Devil, — then is Monmouth Street a Mirza's Hill, 
■ where, in motley vision, the whole Pageant of Existence passes 
1 awfully before us ; with its wail and jubilee, mad loves and 
1 mad hatreds, church -bells and gallows -ropes, farce -tragedy, 
1 beast-godhood, — the Bedlam of Creation !' 

To most men, as it does to ourselves, all this will seem 



1 68 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

overcharged. We too have walked through Monmouth Street; 
but with little feeling of ' Devotion :' probably in part because 
the contemplative process is so fatally broken in upon by the 
brood of money-changers who nestle in that Church, and im- 
portune the worshipper with merely secular proposals. Whereas 
Teufelsdrockh might be in that happy middle state, which leaves 
to the Clothes-broker no hope either of sale or of purchase, and 
so be allowed to linger there without molestation. — Something 
we would have given to see the little philosophical figure, with 
its steeple-hat and loose flowing skirts, and eyes in a fine frenzy, 
' pacing and repacing in austerest thought' that foolish Street ; 
which to him was a true Delphic avenue, and supernatural 
Whispering-gallery, where the ' Ghosts of Life' rounded strange 
secrets in his ear. O thou philosophic Teufelsdrockh, that lis- 
tenest while others only gabble, and with thy quick tympanum 
hearest the grass grow ! 

At the same time, is it not strange that, in Paper -bag 
Documents destined for an English wurk, there exists nothing 
like an authentic diary of this his sojourn in London ; and of 
his Meditations among the Clothes -shops only the obscurest 
emblematic shadows ? Neither, in conversation (for, indeed, he 
was not a man to pester you with his Travels), have we heard 
him more than allude to the subject. 

For the rest, however, it cannot be uninteresting that we 
here find how early the significance of Clothes had dawned on 
the now so distinguished Clothes -Professor. Might we but 
fancy it to have been even in Monmouth Street, at the bottom 
of our own English 'ink-sea,' that this remarkable Volume first 
took being, and shot forth its salient point in his soul, — as in 
Chaos did the Egg of Eros, one day to be hatched into a Uni- 
verse ! 

CHAPTER VII. 

ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 

For us, who happen to live while the World - Phoenix is 
burning herself, and burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdrockh 
calculates, it were a handsome bargain would she engage to 
have done • within two centuries,' there seems to lie but an ashy 



chap. vii. ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 169 

prospect. Not altogether so, however, does the Professor figure 
it. 'In the living subject,' says he, ' change is wont to be gra- 
1 dual : thus, while the serpent sheds its old skin, the new is 
1 already formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the burning 
' of a World-Phcenix, who fanciest that she must first burn-out, 
' and lie as a dead cinereous heap ; and therefrom the young 
' one start-up by miracle, and fly heavenward. Far otherwise ! 

* In that Fire-whirlwind, Creation and Destruction proceed to- 
' gether ; ever as the ashes of the Old are blown about, do 
1 organic filaments of the New mysteriously spin themselves : 
' and amid the rushing and the waving of the Whirlwind-ele- 
1 ment come tones of a melodious Deathsong, which end not 
1 but in tones of a more melodious Birthsong. Nay, look into 
'the Fire - whirlwind with thy own eyes, and thou wilt see.' 
Let us actually look, then : to poor individuals, who cannot ex- 
pect to live two centuries, those same organic filaments, myste- 
riously spinning themselves, will be the best part of the spec- 
tacle. First, therefore, this of Mankind in general : 

' In vain thou deniest it,' says the Professor ; 'thou art my 
' Brother. Thy very Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish Lies 
' thou tellest of me in thy splenetic humour : what is all this 
' but an inverted Sympathy ? Were I a Steam-engine, wouldst 

* thou take the trouble to tell lies of me ? Not thou ! I should 
' grind all unheeded, whether badly or well. 

' Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all ; 

* whether by the soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of 
' Necessity, as we like to choose it. More than once have I 
' said to myself, of some perhaps whimsically strutting Figure, 

* such as provokes whimsical thoughts : "Wert thou, my little 

* Brotherkin, suddenly covered-up within the largest imaginable 
' Glass-bell, — what a thing it were, not for thyself only, but for 
' the world ! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four 
1 winds, impinge against thy Glass walls, but have to drop un- 
' read : neither from within comes there question or response 
' into any Postbag ; thy Thoughts fall into no friendly ear or 
1 heart, thy Manufacture into no purchasing hand : thou art no 
' longer a circulating venous -arterial Heart, that, taking and 
1 giving, circulatest through all Space and all Time : there has 
' a Hole fallen-out in the immeasurable, universal World-tissue, 
1 which must be darned-up again I" 



170 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

'Such venous -arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal Mess- 

* ages, paper and other Packages, going out from him and 
' coming in, are a blood-circulation, visible to the eye : but the 
' finer nervous circulation, by which all things, the minutest 

* that he does, minutely influence all men, and the very look of 
1 his face blesses or curses whomso it lights on, and so gene- 

* rates ever new blessing or new cursing : all this you cannot 
' see, but only imagine. I say, there is not a red Indian, hunt- 
' ing by Lake Winnipic, can quarrel with his squaw, but the 
' whole world must smart for it : will not the price of beaver 
' rise ? It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble 
1 from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the Universe. 

' If now an existing generation of men stand so woven to- 
' gether, not less indissolubly does generation with generation. 
1 Hast thou ever meditated on that word, Tradition : how we 
' inherit not Life only, but all the garniture and form of Life ; 
' and work, and speak, and even think and feel, as our Fathers, 
1 and primeval grandfathers, from the beginning, have given it 

■ us ? — Who printed thee, for example, this unpretending Vol- 
' ume on the Philosophy of Clothes ? Not the H err en Still-* 
' schweigen and Company ; but Cadmus of Thebes, Faust of 
' Mentz, and innumerable others whom thou knowest not. Had 
1 there been no Mcesogothic Ulfila, there had been no English 
' Shakspeare, or s. different one. Simpleton ! it was Tubalcain 

* that made thy very Tailor's needle, and sewed that court-suit 
1 of thine. 

1 Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, 
e much more is Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates 
' Nature, without which Nature were not. As palpable life- 
' streams in that wondrous Individual Mankind, among so many 
1 life-streams that are not palprJble, flow on those main-currents 
1 of what we call Opinion ; as preserved in Institutions, Polities, 
1 Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is to understand 
1 and know that a Thought did never yet die ; that as thou, the 
1 originator thereof, hast gathered it and created it from the 
' whole Past, so thou wilt transmit it to the whole Future. It 

■ is thus that the heroic heart, the seeing eye of the first times, 
' still feels and sees in us of the latest ; that the Wise Man 
1 stands ever encompassed, and spiritually embraced, by a cloud 
' of witnesses and brothers ; and there is a living, literal Com- 



chap. vii. ORGANIC FILAMENTS, 171 

* munion of Saints y wide as the World itself, and as the His- 

* tory of the World. 

' Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this 
' same Individual, wilt thou find his subdivision into Genera- 
1 tions. Generations are as the Days of toilsome Mankind : 
1 Death and Birth are the vesper and the matin bells, that sum- 

* mon Mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed for new advance- 
' ment. What the Father has made, the Son can make and 

* enjoy ; but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus all 
1 things v/ax, and roll onwards ; Arts, Establishments, Opinions, 
' nothing is completed, but ever completing. Newton has learned 
' to see what Kepler saw ; but there is also a fresh heaven -de- 
' rived force in Newton ; he must mount to still higher points 

* of vision. So too the Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due time, fol- 
1 lowed by an Apostle of the Gentiles. In the business of De- 
' struction, as this also is from time to time a necessary work, 

* thou findest a like sequence and perseverance : for Luther it 
' was as yet hot enough to stand by that burning of the Pope's 
1 Bull ; Voltaire could not warm himself at the glimmering 
** ashes, but required quite other fuel. Thus likewise, I note, 
' the English Whig has, in the second generation, become an 
1 English Radical ; who, in the third again, it is to be hoped, 
' will become an English Rebuilder. Find Mankind where thou 
' wilt, thou findest it in living movement, in progress faster or 
' slower : the Phcenix soars aloft, hovers with outstretched wings, 

* filling Earth with her music; or, as now, she sinks, and with 
4 spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she may 
4 soar the higher and sing the clearer,' 

Let the friends of social order, in such a disastrous period, 
lay this to heart, and derive from it any little comfort they can. 
We subjoin another passage, concerning Titles : 

' Remark, not without surprise,' says Teufelsdrockh, * how 
1 all high Titles of Honour come hitherto from Fighting. Your 

* Herzog (Duke, Dux) is Leader of Armies ; your Earl {Jcirl) 
1 is Strong Man ; your Marshal cavalry Horse-shoer. A Millen- 
■ nium, or reign of Peace and Wisdom, having from of old been 
' prophesied, and becoming now daily more and more indubit- 

* able, may it not be apprehended that such Fighting-titles will 
' cease to be palatable, and new and higher need to be devised? 

* The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace eternity, 



172 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

• is that of King. Konig (King), anciently Konning, means 
1 Ken-ning (Cunning), or which is the same thing, Can-ning. 

• Ever must the Sovereign of Mankind be fitly entitled King.' 

1 Well, also,' says he elsewhere, 'was it written by Theo- 
1 logians : a King rules by divine right. He carries in him an 
1 authority from God, or man will never give it him. Can I 

• choose my own King ? I can choose my own King Popin- 
1 jay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him : but he 

• who is to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my 
1 will, was chosen for me in Heaven. Neither except in such 
1 Obedience to the Heaven-chosen is Freedom so much as con- 
4 ceivable.' 

The Editor will here admit that, among all the wondrous 
provinces of Teufelsdrockh's spiritual world, there is none he 
walks in with such astonishment, hesitation, and even pain, as 
in the Political. How, with our English love of Ministry and 
Opposition, and that generous conflict of Parties, mind warming 
itself against mind in their mutual wrestle for the Public Good, 
by which wrestle, indeed, is our invaluable Constitution kept 
warm and alive ; how shall we domesticate ourselves in this 
spectral Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead and of the 
Unborn, where the Present seems little other than an inconsid- 
erable Film dividing the Past and the Future ? In those dim 
longdrawn expanses, all is so immeasurable ; much so disastrous, 
ghastly ; your very radiances and- straggling light-beams have 
a supernatural character. And then with such an indifference, 
such a prophetic peacefulness (accounting the inevitably coming 
as already here, to him all one whether it be distant by centuries 
or only by days), does he sit ; — and live, you would say, rather 
in any other age than in his own ! It is our painful duty to 
announce, or repeat, that, looking into this man, we discern a 
deep, silent, slow-burning, inextinguishable Radicalism, such as 
fills us with shuddering admiration. 

Thus, for example, he appears to make little even of the 
Elective Franchise ; at least so we interpret the following : 
■ Satisfy yourselves,' he says, 'by universal, indubitable experi- 
' ment, even as ye are now doing or will do, whether Freedom, 
' heavenborn and leading heavenward, and so vitally essential 

• for us all, cannot peradventure be mechanically hatched and 



chap. vii. ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 173 

* brought to light in that same Ballot-Box of yours ; or at worst, 
1 in some other discoverable or devisable Box, Edifice, or Steam- 

* mechanism. It were a mighty convenience ; and beyond all 
' feats of manufacture witnessed hitherto.' Is Teufelsdrockh 
acquainted with the British Constitution, .even slightly? — He 
says, under another figure : * But after all, were the problem, as 
1 indeed it now everywhere is, To rebuild your old House from 

* the top downwards (since you must live in it the while), what 
' better, what other, than the Representative Machine will serve 
' your turn ? Meanwhile, however, mock me not with the name 

* of Free, "when you have but knit-up my chains into orna- 
1 mental festoons.'" — Or what will any member of the Peace 
Society make of such an assertion as this : * The lower people 

* everywhere desire War. Not so unwisely ; there is then a 

* demand for lower people — to be shot !' 

Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul- confusing 
labyrinths of speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer re- 
gions. Here, looking round, as was our hest, for ' organic fila- 
ments,' we ask, may not this, touching * Hero-worship,' be of 
the number ? It seems of a cheerful character ; yet so quaint, 
so mystical, one knows not what, or how little, may lie under 
it. Our readers shall look with their own eyes : 

* True is it that, in these days, man can do almost all 
1 things, only not obey. True likewise that whoso cannot obey 

* cannot be free, still less bear rule ; he that is the inferior of 
1 nothing, can be the superior of nothing, the equal of nothing. 
1 Nevertheless, believe not that man has lost his faculty of Re- 

* verence ; that if it slumber in him- it has gone dead. Painful 
1 for man is that same rebellious Independence, when it has 
1 become inevitable ; only in loving companionship with his fel- 

* lows does he feel safe ; only in reverently bowing down before 

* the Higher does he feel himself exalted. 

* Or what if the character of our so troublous Era lay even 
1 in this : that man had forever cast away Fear, which is the 
' lower ; but not yet risen into perennial Reverence, which is 
' the higher and highest ? 

* Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has Nature or- 
1 dered it, that whatsoever man ought to obey, he cannot but 

* obey. Before no faintest revelation of the Godlike did he 
' ever stand irreverent ; least of all, when the Godlike showed 



174 SARTOR RESARTUS. 300K in. 

* itself revealed in his fellow-man. Thus is there a true religious 

* Loyalty forever rooted in his heart ; nay in ail ages, even in 
4 ours, it manifests itself as a more or less orthodox Hero-wor- 
4 ship. In which fact, that Hero-worship exists, has existed, 
4 and will forever exist, universally among Mankind, mayest thou 
■ discern the corner-stone of living-rock, whereon all Polities for 

* the remotest time may stand secure.' 

Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or even so 
much as what Teufelsdrockh is looking at ? He exclaims, ' Or 
4 hast thou forgotten Paris and Voltaire ? How the aged, withered 
4 man, though but a Sceptic, Mocker, and millinery Court-poet, 
4 yet because even he seemed the Wisest, Best, could drag man- 
4 kind at his chariot-wheels, so that princes coveted a smile from 
4 him, and the loveliest of France would have laid their hair 
4 beneath his feet ! All Paris was one vast Temple of Hero- 
1 worship ; though their Divinity, moreover, was of feature too 

* apish. 

4 But if such things,' continues he, 'were done in the dry 

* tree, what will be done in the green ? If, in the most parched 
1 season of Man's History, in the most parched spot of Europe, 

* when Parisian life was at best but a scientific Hortus Siccus, 
4 bedizened with some Italian Gumflowers, such virtue could 

* come out of it ; what is to be looked for when Life again waves 
4 leafy and bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shall have nothing 
4 apelike, but be wholly human ? Know that there is in man 
6 a quite indestructible Reverence for whatsoever holds of Hea- 
4 ven, or even plausibly counterfeits such holding. Show the 
4 dullest clodpole, show the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul 
4 higher than himself is actually here ; were his knees stiffened 
' into brass, he must down and worship.' 

Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mysteriously 
spinning themselves, some will perhaps discover in the following 
passage : 

4 There is no Church, sayest thou ? The voice of Prophecy 
4 has gone dumb ? This is even what I dispute : but in any 
4 case, hast thou not still Preaching enough ? A Preaching Friar 
4 settles himseli in every village ; and builds a pulpit, which he 

* calls Newspaper. Thereirom he preaches what most moment- 
4 ous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation ; and dost not thou 
4 listen, and believe ? Look well, thou seest everywhere a new 



chap. vii. ORGANIC FILAMENTS. »*$ 

' Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, some bare-footed, some almost 
' bare-backed, fashion itself into shape, and teach and preach, 

* zealously enough, for copper alms and the love of God. These 
' break in pieces the ancient idols ; and, though themselves too 
' often reprobate, as idol-breakers are wont to be, mark out the 
' sites of new Churches, where the true God-ordained, that are 
4 to follow, may find audience, and minister. Said I not, Before 
' the old skin was shed, the new had formed itself beneath it ?' 

Perhaps also in the following ; wherewith we now hasten to 
knit-up this ravelled sleeve : 

' But there is no Religion ?' reiterates the Professor. ' Fool ! 
' I tell thee, there is. Hast thou well considered all that lies 
' in this immeasurable froth- ocean we name Literature ? 
' Fragments of a genuine Chuich-Ho?mletic lie scattered there, 
' which Time will assort : nay fractions even of a Liturgy could 

* I point out. And knowest thou no Prophet, even in the ves- 
' ture, environment, and dialect of this age ? None to whom 
' the Godlike had revealed itself, through all meanest and highest 

* forms of the Common ; and by him been again prophetically 

* revealed : in whose inspired melody, even in these rag-gather- 

* ing and rag-burning days, Man's Life again begins, were it but 
' afar off, to be divine ? Knowest thou none such ? I know him, 
f and name him — Goethe. 

' But thou as yet standest in no Temple; joinest in no Psalm- 
e worship ; feelest well that, where there is no ministering Priest, 

* the people perish ? Be of comfort ! Thou art not alone, if 
' thou have Faith. Spake we not of a Communion of Saints, 
' unseen, yet not unreal, accompanying and brother -like em- 
' bracing thee, so thou be worthy ? Their heroic Sufferings rise 

* up melodiously together to Heaven, out of all lands, and out 

* of all times, as a sacred Miserere; their heroic Actions also, as 
1 a boundless everlasting Psalm of Triumph. Neither say that 
1 thou hast now no Symbol of the Godlike. Is not God's Uni- 

* verse a Symbol of the Godlike ; is not Immensity a Temple ; 
' is not Man's History, and Men's History, a perpetual Evangel? 
1 Listen, and ior organ-music thou wilt ever, as oi old, hear the 
■ Morning Stars sing together.' 



£7& SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 

It is in his stupendous Section, headed Natural Superna- 
turalism y that the Professor first becomes a Seer ; and, after 
long effort, such as we have witnessed, finally subdues under 
his feet this refractory Clothes-Philosophy, and takes victorious 
possession thereof. Phantasms enough he has had to struggle 
with ; ' Cloth-webs and Cob-webs,' of Imperial Mantles, Super- 
annuated Symbols, and what not : yet still did he courageously 
pierce through. Nay, worst of all, two quite mysterious, world- 
embracing Phantasms, Time and Space, have ever hovered 
round him, perplexing and bewildering : but with these also 
he now resolutely grapples, these also he victoriously rends 
asunder. In a word, he has looked fixedly on Existence, till, 
one after the other, its earthly hulls and garnitures have all 
melted away ; and now, to his rapt vision, the interior celestial 
Holy of Holies lies disclosed. 

Here, therefore, properly it is that the Philosophy of Clothes 
attains to Transcendentalism ; this last leap, can we but clear 
it, takes us safe into the promised land, where Palingenesia, in 
all senses, may be considered as beginning. ' Courage, then !' 
may our Diogenes exclaim, with better right than Diogenes 
the First once did. This stupendous Section we, after long 
painful meditation, have found not to be unintelligible ; but, on 
the contrary, to grow clear, nay radiant, and all-illuminating. 
Let the reader, turning on it what utmost force of speculative 
intellect is in him, do his part ; as we, by judicious selection 
and adjustment, shall study to do ours : 

1 Deep has been, and is, the significance of Miracles,' thus 
quietly begins the Professor ; ' far deeper perhaps than we 

* imagine. Meanwhile, the question of questions were : What 

* specially is a Miracle ? To that Dutch King of Siam, an 

* icicle had been a miracle ; whoso had carried with him an 
1 air-pump, and vial of vitriolic ether, might have worked a 
1 miracle. To my Horse, again, who unhappily is still more 
4 unscientific, do not I work a miracle, and magical " Open 



chap. vin. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 177 

1 sesame /" every time I please to pay twopence, and open for 
' him an impassable Schlagbaum, or shut Turnpike ? 

1 " But is not a real Miracle simply a violation of the Laws 
' of Nature ?" ask several. Whom I answer by this new ques- 
' tion : What are the Laws of Nature ? To me perhaps the 
' rising of one from the dead were no violation of these Laws, 
' but a confirmation ; were some far deeper Law, now first 
' penetrated into, and by Spiritual Force, even as the rest have 
' all been, brought to bear on us with its Material Force. 

' Here too may some inquire, not without astonishment : 
1 On what ground shall one, that can make Iron swim, come 
' and declare that therefore he can teach Religion ? To us, 
1 truly, of the Nineteenth Century, such declaration were inept 
' enough ; which nevertheless to our fathers, of the First Cen- 
1 tury, was full of meaning. 

• " But is it not the deepest Law of Nature that she be con- 

* stant ?" cries an illuminated class : "Is not the Machine of 
1 the Universe fixed to move by unalterable rules ?" Probable 
1 enough, good friends : nay I, too, must believe that the God, 
1 whom ancient inspired men assert to be " without variable- 
1 ness or shadow of turning," does indeed never change ; that 

* Nature, that the Universe, which no one whom it so pleases 
' can be prevented from calling a Machine, does move by the 
' most unalterable rules. And now of you, too, I make the 

* old inquiry : What those same unalterable rules, forming the 

* complete Statute-Book of Nature, may possibly be ? 

' They stand written in our Works of Science, say you ; 
1 in the accumulated records of Man's Experience ? — Was Man 
' with his Experience present at the Creation, then, to see how 
1 it all went on ? Have any deepest scientific individuals yet 

* dived down to the foundations of the Universe, and gauged 
1 everything there ? Did the Maker take them into His coun- 
1 sel ; that they read His groundplan of the incomprehensible 
1 All ; and can say, This stands marked therein, and no more 
■ than this ? Alas, not in anywise ! These scientific individuals 
1 have been nowhere but where we also are ; have seen some 
1 handbreaths deeper than we see into the Deep that is infinite, 

* without bottom as without shore. 

' Laplace's Book on the Stars, wherein he exhibits that cer- 
1 tain Planets, with their Satellites, gyrate round our worthy 



i;S SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

' Sun, at a rate and in a course, which, by greatest good for- 
' tune, he and the like of him have succeeded in detecting, — 

* is to me as precious as to another. But is this what thou 
1 namest "Mechanism of the Heavens," and "System of the 
« World ;" this, wherein Sirius and the Pleiades, and all Her- 
' scnd's Fifteen-thousand Suns per minute, being left out,, some 
« paltry handful of Moons, and inert Balls, had been — looked 

* at, nicknamed, and marked in the Zodiacal Way-bill ; so that 
' we can now prate of their Whereabout ; their How, their Why, 

* their What, being hid from us, as in the signless Inane ? 

• System of Nature ! To the wisest man, wide as is his 
' vision, Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite 

* expansion ; and all Experience thereof limits itself to some few 
4 computed centuries and measured square-miles. The course 

* of Nature's phases, on this our little fraction of a Planet, is 
' partially known to us : but who knows what deeper courses 

* these depend on ; what infinitely larger Cycle (of causes) our 
' little Epicycle revolves on ? To the Minnow every cranny 
' and pebble, and quality and accident, of its little native Creek 
' may have become familiar : but does the Minnow understand 
' the Ocean Tides and periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and 
1 Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses ; by all which the condition 

* of its little Creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (un- 

* miraculously enough), be quite overset and reversed ? Such 

* a minnow is Man ; his Creek this Planet Earth ; his Ocean 
' the immeasurable All ; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the 
' mysterious Course of Providence through ^Eons of ALons. 

' We speak of the Volume of Nature : and truly a Volume 

* it is, — whose Author and Writer is God. To read it ! Dost 
' thou, does man, so much as well know the Alphabet thereof? 

* With its Words, Sentences, and grand descriptive Pages, 
1 poetical and philosophical, spread out through Solar Systems, 
1 and Thousands of Years, we shall not try thee. It is a Vol- 
' ume written in celestial hieroglyphs, in the true Sacred-writ- 
' ing ; of which even Prophets are happy that they can read 

* here a line and there a line. As for your Institutes, and 
■ Academies of Science, they strive bravely ; and, from amid 
' the thick-crowded, inextricably intertwisted hieroglyphic writ- 

* ing, pick out, by dextrous combination, some Letters in the 
' vulgar Character, and therefrom put together this and the 



chap, viil NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 179 

'other economic Recipe, of high avail in Practice. That Na- 
' ture is more than some boundless Volume of such Recipes, 
-* or huge, well-nigh inexhaustible Domestic-Cookery Book, of 
' which the whole secret will in this manner one day evolve 
' itself, the fewest dream. 

* Custom,' continues the Professor, 'doth make dotards of 
' us all. Consider well, thou wilt find that Custom is the 
4 greatest of Weavers ; and weaves air-raiment for all the Spirits 
' of the Universe ; whereby indeed these dwell with us visibly, 
' as ministering servants, in our houses and workshops ; bufc 

* their spiritual nature becomes, to the most, forever hidden, 

* Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from 
' the first ; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by 
' it ; that our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking az> we 
' may, are oftenest simply such Beliefs as we have never heard 
1 questioned. Nay, what is Philosophy throughout but a con- 
' tinual battle against Custom ; an ever-renewed effort to transcend 

* the sphere of blind Custom, and so become Transcendental ? 

' Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of 
1 Custom : but of all these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack 
1 of persuading us that the Miraculous, by simple repetition, 

* ceases to be Miraculous. True, it is by this means we live ; 

* for man must work as well as wonder : and herein is Custom 
' so far a kind nurse, guiding him to his true benefit. But she 
' is a fond foolish nurse, or rather we are false foolish nurse- 
' lings, when, in our resting and reflecting hours, we prolong 
4 the same deception. Am I to view the Stupendous with 

* stupid indifference, because I have seen it twice, or two-hun- 
' dred, or two-million times ? There is no reason in Nature or 
' in Art why I should : unless, indeed, I am a mere Work- 
' Machine, for whom the divine gift of Thought were no other 
' than the terrestrial gift of Steam is to the Steam-engine ; a 
' power whereby cotton might be spun, and money and money's 
1 worth realised. 

' Notable enough too, here as elsewhere, wilt thou find the 
1 potency of Names ; which indeed are but one kind of such 
' custom-woven, wonder-hiding Garments. Witchcraft, and all 
1 manner oi Spectre-work, and Demonology, we have now named 

* Madness, and Diseases of the Nerves. Seldom reflecting that 



180 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

* still the new question comes upon us : What is Madness, what 

* are Nerves ? Ever, as before, does Madness remain a mys- 
' terious-terrific, altogether infernal boiling-up of the Nether 
' Chaotic Deep, through this fair-painted Vision of Creation, 
1 which swims thereon, which we name the Real. Was Luther's 
' Picture of the Devil less a Reality, whether it were formed 
1 within the bodily eye, or without it ? In every the wisest Soul 
' lies a whole world of internal Madness, an authentic Demon- 

* Empire ; out of which, indeed, his world of Wisdom has been 
' creatively built together, and now rests there, as on its dark 

* foundations does a habitable flowery Earth-rind. 

' But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Won- 
' der, as for many other ends, are your two grand fundamental 
1 world-enveloping Appearances, Space and Time. These, as 
' spun and woven for us from before Birth itself, to clothe our 
1 celestial Me for dwelling here, and yet to blind it, — lie all- 
1 embracing, as the universal canvas, or warp and woof, whereby 
' all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave and 
1 paint themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you 

* endeavour to strip them off ; you can, at best, but rend them 
' asunder for moments, and look through. 

1 Fortunatus had a wishing Hat, which when he put on, 
1 and wished himself Anywhere, behold he was There. By this 
' means had Fortunatus triumphed over Space, he had annihil- 
' ated Space ; for him there was no Where, but all was Here. 
' Were a Hatter to establish himself, in the Wahngasse of 

* Weissnichtwo, and make felts of this sort for all mankind, 

* what a world we should have of it ! Still stranger, should, 
' on the opposite side of the street, another Hatter establish 

* himself ; and, as his fellow-craftsman made Space-annihilating 

* Hats, make Time-annihilating ! Of both would I purchase, 
1 were it with my last groschen ; but chiefly of this latter. To 
' clap-on your felt, and, simply by wishing that you were Any- 
1 where, straightway to be There ! Next to clap-on your other 
1 felt, and, simply by wishing that you were Any wke7t t straight- 
1 way to be Then ! This were indeed the grander : shooting 

* at will from the Fire-Creation of the World to its Fire-Con- 

* summation ; here historically present in the First Century, 
■ conversing face to face with Paul and Seneca ; there pro- 



chap. viii. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 181 

1 phetically in the Thirty-first, conversing also face to face with 
- other Pauls and Senecas, who as yet stand hidden in the 
4 depth of that late Time ! 

* Or thinkest thou it were impossible, unimaginable ? Is 

* the Past annihilated, then, or only past ; is the Future non- 
' extant, or only future ? Those mystic faculties of thine, 
' Memory and Hope, already answer : already through those 
1 mystic avenues, thou the Earth-blinded summonest both Past 
' and Future, and communest with them, though as yet darkly, 
' and with mute beckonings. The curtains of Yesterday drop 

* down, the curtains of Tomorrow roll up ; but Yesterday and 
' Tomorrow both are. Pierce through the Time-element, glance 
' into the Eternal. Believe what thou findest written in the 
1 sanctuaries of Man's Soul, even as all Thinkers, in all ages, 

* have devoutly read it there : that Time and Space are not 

* God, but creations of God ; that with God as it is a universal 
' Here, so is it an everlasting Now. 

'And seest thou therein any glimpse of Immortality ? — O 
' Heaven ! Is the white Tomb of our Loved One, who died from 
1 our arms, and had to be left behind us there, which rises in 
' the distance, like a pale, mournfully receding Milestone, to 
1 tell how many toilsome uncheered miles we have journeyed on 
1 alone, — but a pale spectral Illusion ! Is the lost Friend still 
1 mysteriously Here, even as we are Here mysteriously, with 

* God! — Know of a truth that only the Time- shadows have 
' perished, or are perishable ; that the real Being of whatever 
1 was, and whatever is, and whatever will be, is even now and 

forever. This, should it unhappily seem new, thou mayest 

* ponder at thy leisure ; for the next twenty years, or the next 
1 twenty centuries : believe it thou must ; understand it thou 
1 canst not. 

* That the Thought-forms, Space and Time, wherein, once 

* for all, we are sent into this Earth to live, should condition 
1 and determine our whole Practical reasonings, conceptions, 
1 and imagings or imaginings, seems altogether fit, just, and un- 
' avoidable. But that they should, furthermore, usurp such sway 
1 over pure spiritual Meditation, and blind us to the wonder 
1 everywhere lying close on us, seems nowise so. Admit Space 

* and Time to their due rank as Forms of Thought ; nay even, 
4 if thou wilt, to their quite undue rank of Realities : and con- 



£82 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

' sicler, then, with thyself how their thin disguises hide from us 
' the brightest God-effulgences ! Thus, were it not miraculous, 
' could I stretch forth my hand and clutch the Sun? Yet thou 
' seest me daily stretch forth my hand and therewith clutch 
1 many a thing, and swing it hither and thither. Art thou a 

* grown baby, then, to fancy that the Miracle lies in miles of 

* distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to see 
' that the true inexplicable God -revealing Miracle lies in this, 
' that I can stretch forth my hand at all ; that I have free 
k Force to clutch aught therewith ? Innumerable other of this 
1 sort are the deceptions, and wonder-hiding stupefactions, which 
' Space practises on us. 

' Still worse is it with regard to Time. Your grand anti- 

■ magician, and universal wonder-hider, is this same lying Time. 
' Had we but the Time-annihilating Hat, to put on for once 
' only, we should see ourselves in a World of Miracles, wherein 
' all fabled or authentic Thaumaturgy, and feats of Magic, were 
' outdone. But unhappily we have not such a Hat ; and man, 

* poor fool that he is, can seldom and scantily help himself with- 
' out one. 

' Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Orpheus, or Am- 
1 phion, built the walls of Thebes by the mere sound of his 
' Lyre ? Yet tell me, Who built these walls of Weissnichtwo ; 
1 summoning out all the sandstone rocks, to dance along from 
1 the Steinbrttch (now a huge Troglodyte Chasm, with frightful 
' green-mantled pools) ; and shape themselves into Doric and 
' Ionic pillars, squared ashlar houses and noble streets ? Was 
1 it not the still higher Orpheus, or Orpheuses, who, in past 

* centuries, by the divine Music of Wisdom, succeeded in civil- 
' ising Man ? Our highest Orpheus walked in Judea, eighteen- 
' hundred years ago : his sphere-melody, flowing in wild native 

■ tones, took captive the ravished souls of men ; and, being of 
1 a truth sphere-melody, still flows and sounds, though now with 
' thousandfold accompaniments, and rich symphonies, through 
' all our hearts ; and modulates, and divinely leads them. Is 

* that a wonder, which happens in two hours ; and does it cease 
1 to be wonderful if happening in two million ? Not only was 
1 Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus ; but without the 
1 music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no 

* work that man glories in ever done. 



chap. viii. NATURAL SUPERNATURAL1SM. 183 

' Sweep away the Illusion of Time ; glance, if thou have 
' eyes, from the near moving- cause to its far -distant Mover : 
' The stroke that came transmitted through a whole galaxy of 

* elastic balls, was it less a stroke than if the last ball only had 
t * been struck, and sent flying ? O, could I (with the Time- 

' annihilating Hat) transport thee direct from the Beginnings 
' to the Endings, how were thy eyesight unsealed, and thy heart 
' set naming in the Light-sea of celestial wonder ! Then sawest 

* thou that this fair Universe, were it in the meanest province 
' thereof, is in very deed the star- domed City of God ; that 
' through every star, through every grass - blade, and most 

* through every Living Soul, the glory of a present God still 
' beams. But Nature, which is the Time-vesture of God, and 
' reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish. 

' Again, could anything be more miraculous than an actual 

* authentic Ghost ? The English Johnson longed, all his life, to 
' see one ; but could not, though he went to Cock Lane, and 

* thence to the church-vaults, and tapped on coffins. Foolish 
' Doctor ! Did he never, with the mind's eye as well as with 

* the body's, look round him into that full tide of human Life 

* he so loved ; did he never so much as look into Himself? 
' The good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as 
' heart could wish ; well-nigh a million of Ghosts were travel- 
' ling the streets by his side. Once more I say, sweep away the 

* illusion of Time ; compress the threescore years into three 
' minutes : what else was he, what else are we ? Are we not 
' Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an Appearance ; and 
' that fade away again into air and Invisibility ? This is no 
1 metaphor, it is a simple Scientific fact : we start out of No- 
1 thingness, take figure, and are Apparitions ; round us, as 
4 round the veriest spectre, is Eternity ; and to Eternity minutes 
1 are as years and aeons. Come there not tones of Love and 

* Faith, as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song of beatified 

* Souls ? And again, do not we squeak and jibber (in our dis- 
' cordant, screech -owlish debatings and recriminatings) ; and 
' glide bodeful, and feeble, and fearful ; or uproar {polterri), 

* and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead, — till the scent of 

* the morning air summons us to our still Home ; and dreamy 

* Night becomes awake and Day ? Where now is Alexander of 

* Macedon : does the steel Host, that yelled in fierce battle- 



tB4 SARTOR RESARTUS. book iVu 

6 shouts at Issus and Arbela, remain behind him ; or have they 
' all vanished utterly, even as perturbed Goblins must ? Napo- 

* leon too, and his Moscow Retreats and Austerlitz Campaigns ! 
' Was it all other than the veriest Spectre-hunt ; which has now, 
' with its howling tumult that made Night hideous, flitted away? 

* — Ghosts ! There are nigh a thousand -million walking the 

* Earth openly at noontide ; some half-hundred have vanished 

* from it, some half- hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch 
' ticks once. 

' O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we 
' not only carry each a future Ghost within him ; but are, in 
1 very deed, Ghosts ! These Limbs, whence had we them ; this 
' stormy Force ; this life-blood with its burning Passion ? They 
' are dust and shadow ; a Shadow-system gathered round our 
' Me; wherein, through some moments or years, the Divine 
' Essence is to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior on his 
1 strong war-horse, fire flashes through his eyes ; force dwells 
1 in his arm and heart : but warrior and war-horse are a vision ; 

* a revealed Force, nothing more. Stately they tread the Earth, 
1 as if it were a firm substance : fool ! the Earth is but a film ; 

* it cracks in twain, and warrior and war-horse sink beyond 
1 plummet's sounding. Plummet's ? Fantasy herself will not fol- 
■ low them. A little while ago, they were not ; a little while, and 
f they are not, their very ashes are not. 

1 So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to the 
' end. Generation after generation takes to itself the Form of 

* a Body ; and forth- issuing from Cimmerian Night, on Hea- 
1 ven's mission appears. What Force and Fire is in each he 
' expends : one grinding in the mill of Industry ; one hunter- 
1 like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of Science ; one madly 
1 dashed in pieces on the rocks of Strife, jn war with his fel- 

* low : — and then the Heaven-sent is recalled ; his earthly Ves- 
' ture falls away, and soon even to Sense becomes a vanished 
' Shadow. Thus, like some wild-flaming, wild-thundering train 

* of Heaven's Artillery, does this mysterious Mankind thunder 
' and flame, in long-drawn, quick-succeeding grandeur, through 
1 the unknown Deep. Thus, like a God-created, fire-breathing 
1 Spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane ; haste stormfully across 
' the astonished Earth ; then plunge again into the Inane. 
1 Earth's mountains are levelled, and her seas filled up, in our 



chap. ix. CIRCUMSPECTIVE. ig| 

1 passage : can the Earth, which is but dead and a vision, re- 
* sist Spirits which have reality and are alive ? On the hardest 
' adamant some footprint of us is stamped-in ; the last Rear of 
' the host will read traces of the earliest Van. But whence ? 
1 — O Heaven, whither ? Sense knows not ; Faith knows not ; 
' only that it is through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to 
' God. 

"We are suck stuff 

As dreams are made of, and our little Life 

Is rounded with a sleep !" ' 



CHAPTER IX. 

CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 

Here, then, arises the so momentous question : Have many 
British Readers actually arrived with us at the new promised 
country ; is the Philosophy of Clothes now at last opening 
around them ? Long and adventurous has the journey been : 
from those outmost vulgar, palpable Woollen Hulls of Man ; 
through his wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his wondrous Social 
Garnitures ; inwards to the Garments of his very Soul's Soul, 
to Time and Space themselves ! And now does the spiritual, 
eternal Essence of Man, and of Mankind, bared of such wrap- 
pages, begin in any measure to reveal itself? Can many read- 
ers discern, as through a glass darkly, in huge wavering outlines, 
some primeval rudiments of Man's Being, what is changeable 
divided from what is unchangeable ? Does that Earth-Spirit's 
speech in Faust, — 

' Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, 
And weave for God the Garment thou see'st Him by ;' 

or that other thousand-times repeated speech of the Magician, 
Shakspeare, — 

' And like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
The cloudcapt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces, 
The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself, 
And all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 
And like this unsubstantial- pageant faded, 
Leave not a wrack behind ;' 



1 86 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

Degin to have some meaning for us ? In a word, do we at 
length stand safe in the far region of Poetic Creation and Pa- 
lingenesia, where that Phoenix Death-Birth of Human Society, 
and of all Human Things, appears possible, is seen to be in- 
evitable ? 

Along this most insufficient, unheard-of Bridge, which the 
Editor, by Heaven's blessing, has now seen himself enabled to 
conclude if not complete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but 
only his fond hope, that many have travelled without accident. 
No firm arch, overspanning the Impassable with paved high- 
way, could the Editor construct ; only, as was said, some zig- 
zag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. Alas, and the 
leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneck charac- 
ter ; the darkness, the nature of the element, all was against 
us ! 

Nevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, 
provided with a discursiveness of intellect rare in our day, have 
cleared the passage, in spite of all ? Happy few ! little band of 
Friends ! be welcome, be of courage. By degrees, the eye grows 
accustomed to its new Whereabout ; the hand can stretch itself 
forth to work there : it is in this grand and indeed highest work 
of Palingenesia that ye shall labour, each according to ability. 
New labourers will arrive ; new Bridges will be built ; nay, may 
not our own poor rope-and-raft Bridge, in your passings and 
repassings, be mended in many a point, till it grow quite firm, 
passable even for the halt ? 

Meanwhile, of the innumerable multitude that started with 
us, joyous and full of hope, where now is the innumerable re- 
mainder, whom we see no longer by our side ? The most have 
recoiled, and stand gazing afar off, in unsympathetic astonish- 
ment, at our career : not a few, pressing forward with more 
courage, have missed footing, or leaped short ,* and now swim 
weltering in the Chaos-flood, some towards this shore, some to- 
wards that. To these also a helping hand should be held out ; 
at least some word of encouragement be said. 

Or, to speak without metaphor, with which mode of utterance 
Teufelsdrockh unhappily has somewhat infected us,— can it be 
hidden from the Editor that many a British Reader sits reading 
quite bewildered in head, and afflicted rather than instructed 
by the present Work ? Yes, long ago has many a British Reader 



chap. ix. CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 187 

been, as now, demanding with something like a snarl : Whereto 
does all this lead ; or what use is in it ? 

In the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise aiding 
thy digestive faculty, O British Reader, it leads to nothing, and 
there is no use in it ; but rather the reverse, for it costs thee 
somewhat. Nevertheless, if through this unpromising Horn-gate, 
Teufelsdrockh, and we by means of him, have led thee into the 
true Land of Dreams ; and through the Clothes -Screen, as 
through a magical Pierre -Pertuis, thou lookest, even for mo- 
ments, into the region of the Wonderful, and seest and feelest 
that thy daily life is girt with Wonder, and based on Wonder, 
and thy very blankets and breeches are Miracles, — then art 
thou profited beyond money's worth ; and hast a thankfulness 
towards our Professor ; nay, perhaps in many a literary Tea- 
circle wilt open thy kind lips, and audibly express that same. 

Nay farther, art not thou too perhaps by this time made 
aware that all Symbols are properly Clothes ; that all Forms 
whereby Spirit manifests itself to sense, whether outwardly or 
in the imagination, are Clothes ; and thus not only the parch- 
ment Magna Charta, which a Tailor was nigh cutting into mea- 
sures, but the Pomp and Authority of Law, the sacredness of 
Majesty, and all inferior Worships (Worthships) are properly a 
Vesture and Raiment ; and the Thirty-nine Articles themselves 
are articles of wearing -apparel (for the Religious Idea) ? In 
which case, must it not also be admitted that this Science of 
Clothes is a high one, and may with infinitely deeper study on 
thy part yield richer fruit : that it takes scientific rank beside 
Codification, and Political Economy, and the Theory of the 
British Constitution ; nay rather, from its prophetic height looks 
down on all these, as on so many weaving-shops and spinning- 
mills, where the Vestures which it has to fashion, and conse- 
crate and distribute, are, too often by haggard hungry opera- 
tives who see no farther than their nose, mechanically woven 
and spun ? 

But omitting all this, much more all that concerns Natural 
Supernaturalism, and indeed whatever has reference to the Ulte- 
rior or Transcendental portion of the Science, or bears never 
so remotely on that promised Volume of the Palingenesie der 
menschlichen Gesellschaft (Newbirth of Society), — we humbly 
suggest that no province of Clothes-Philosophy, even the lowest, 



1 88 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

is without its direct value, but that innumerable inferences of 
a practical nature may be drawn therefrom. To say nothing 
of those pregnant considerations, ethical, political, symbolical, 
which crowd on the Clothes -Philosopher from the very thres- 
hold of his Science ; nothing even of those 'architectural ideas,' 
which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of all Modes, and 
will one day, better unfolding themselves, lead to important 
revolutions, — let us glance for a moment, and with the faintest 
light of Clothes-Philosophy, on what may be called the Habila- 
tory Class of our fellow-men. Here too overlooking, where so 
much were to be looked on, the million spinners, weavers, ful- 
lers, dyers, washers, and wringers, that puddle and muddle in 
their dark recesses, to make us Clothes, and die that we may 
live, — let us but turn the reader's attention upon two small divi- 
sions of mankind, who, like moths, may be regarded as Cloth- 
animals, creatures that live, move and have their being in Cloth : 
we mean, Dandies and Tailors. 

In regard to both which small divisions it may be asserted 
without scruple, that the public feeling, unenlightened by Philo- 
sophy, is at fault ; and even that the dictates of humanity are 
violated. As will perhaps abundantly appear to readers of the 
two following Chapters. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE DANDIACAL BODY. 

First, touching Dandies, let us consider, with some scientific 
strictness, what a Dandy specially is. A Dandy is a Clothes- 
wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists 
in the wearing of Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, 
purse and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, 
the wearing of Clothes wisely and well : so that as others 
dress to live, he lives to dress. The all-importance of Clothes, 
which a German Professor, of unequalled learning and acumen, 
writes his enormous Volume to demonstrate, has sprung up in 
the intellect of the Dandy without effort, like an instinct of 
genius ; he is inspired with Cloth, a Poet of Cloth. What Teu- 
felsdrockh would call a ' Divine Idea of Cloth' is born with 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 189 

him ; and this, like other such Ideas, will express itself out- 
wardly, or wring his heart asunder with unutterable throes. 

But, like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes 
his Idea an Action ; shows himself in peculiar guise to man- 
kind ; walks forth, a witness and living Martyr to the eternal 
worth of Clothes. We called him a Poet : is not his body the 
(stuffed) parchment-skin whereon he writes, with cunning Hud- 
dersfield dyes, a Sonnet to his mistress' eyebrow ? Say, rather, 
an Epos, and Clotha Virumque cano, to the whole world, in 
Macaronic verses, which he that runs may read. Nay, if you 
grant, what seems to be admissible, that the Dandy has a Think- 
ing-principle in him, and some notions of Time and Space, is 
there not in this Life-devotedness to Cloth, in this so willing 
sacrifice of the Immortal to the Perishable, something (though 
in revtrse order) of that blending and identification of Eternity 
with Time, which, as we have seen, constitutes the Prophetic 
character ? 

And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and 
even Prophecy, what is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, 
we may say, that you would recognise his existence ; would admit 
him to be a living object ; or even failing this, a visual object, 
or thing that will reflect rays of light. Your silver or your gold 
(beyond what the niggardly Law has already secured him) he 
solicits not ; simply the glance of your eyes. Understand his 
mystic significance, or altogether miss and misinterpret it ; do 
but look at him, and he is contented. May we not well cry 
shame on an ungrateful world, which refuses even this poor 
boon ; which will waste its optic faculty on dried Crocodiles, 
and Siamese Twins ; and over the domestic wonderful wonder 
of wonders, a live Dandy, glance with hasty indifference, and a 
scarcely concealed contempt ! Him no Zoologist classes among 
the Mammalia, no Anatomist dissects with care : when did we 
see any injected Preparation of the Dandy in our Museums ; 
any specimen of him preserved in spirits ? Lord Herringbone 
may dress himself in a snuff-brown suit, with snuff-brown shirt 
and shoes : it skills not ; the undiscerning public, occupied with 
grosser wants, passes by regardless on the other side. 

The age of Curiosity, like that of Chivalry, is indeed, pro- 
perly speaking, gone. Yet perhaps only gone to sleep : for here 
arises the Clothes -Philosophy to resuscitate, strangely enough, 



190 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

both the one and the other ! Should sound views of this Science 
come to prevail, the essential nature of the British Dandy, and 
the mystic significance that lies in him, cannot always remain 
hidden under laughable and lamentable hallucination. The fol- 
lowing long Extract from Professor Teufelsdrockh may set the 
matter, if not in its true light, yet in the way towards such. It 
is to be regretted, however, that here, as so often elsewhere, the 
Professor's keen philosophic perspicacity is somewhat marred 
by a certain mixture of almost owlish purblindness, or else of 
some perverse, ineffectual, ironic tendency ; our readers shall 
judge which : 

'In these distracted times/ writes he, 'when the Religious 

• Principle, driven out of most Churches, either lies unseen in 

• the hearts of good men, looking and longing and silently work- 
' ing there towards some new Revelation ; or else wanders 
1 homeless ever the world, like a disembodied soul seeking its 
' terrestrial organisation, — into how many strange shapes, of 
' Superstition and Fanaticism, does it not tentatively and er- 
' rantly cast itself ! The higher Enthusiasm of man's nature is 
1 for the while without Exponent ; yet does it continue inde- 
1 stuctible, unweariedly active, and work blindly in the great 
' chaotic deep : thus Sect after Sect, and Church after Church, 
1 bodies itself forth, and melts again into new metamorphosis. 

* Chiefly is this observable in England, which, as the wealthi- 
' est and worst-instructed of European nations, offers precisely 
1 the elements (of Heat, namely, and of Darkness), in which such 
■ moon-calves and monstrosities are best generated. Among the 

• newer Sects of that country, one of the most notable, and 
' closely connected with our present subject, is that of theZtoj- 
' dies; concerning which, what little information I have been 
1 able to procure may fitly stand here. 

' It is true, certain of the English Journalists, men generally 
1 without sense for the Religious Principle, or judgment for its 
' manifestations, speak, in their brief enigmatic notices, as if 
' this were perhaps rather a Secular Sect, and not a Religious 
1 one ; nevertheless, to the psychologic eye its devotional and 
' even sacrificial character plainly enough reveals itself. Whether 
' it belongs to the class of Fetish-worships, or of Hero-worships 

• or Polytheisms, or to what other class, may in the present state 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 191 

' of our intelligence remain undecided (schweben). A certain 
4 touch of Manicheism, not indeed in the Gnostic shape, is dis- 
' cernible enough : also (for human Error walks in a cycle, and 
' reappears at intervals) a not-inconsiderable resemblance to that 
' Superstition of the Athos Monks, who by fasting from all 
1 nourishment, and looking intensely for a length of time into 
4 their own navels, came to discern therein the true Apocalypse 

* of Nature, and Heaven Unveiled. To my own surmise, it 
1 appears as if this Dandiacal Sect were but a new modification, 
' adapted to the new time, of that primeval Superstition, Self-wor- 

* ship; which Zerdusht, Quangfoutcb.ee, Mohamed, and others, 
4 strove rather to subordinate and restrain than to eradicate ; 
' and which only in the purer forms of Religion has been alto- 
' gether rejected. Wherefore, if any one chooses to name it 
1 revived Ahrimanism, or a new figure of Demon -Worship, I 
4 have, so far as is yet visible, no objection. 

4 For the rest, these people, animated with the zeal of a new 
'■ Sect, display courage and perseverance, and what force there 

* is in man's nature, though never so enslaved. They affect 

* great purity and separatism ; distinguish themselves by a par- 
' ticuiar costume (whereof some notices were given in the earlier 
' part of this Volume) ; likewise, so far as possible, by a par- 
' ticuiar speech (apparently some broken Lingua-franca t or Eng- 
' lish-French) ; and, on the whole, strive to maintain a true 
' Nazarene deportment, and keep themselves unspotted from the 
' world. 

1 They have their Temples, whereof the chief, as the Jewish 
■ Temple did, stands in their metropolis ; and is named Almacfts, 

* a word of uncertain etymology. They worship principally by 
4 night ; and have their Highpriests and Highpriestesses, who, 
' however, do net continue for life. The rites, by some sup- 
1 posed to be of the Menadic sort, or perhaps with an Eleu- 
6 sinian or Cabiric character, are held strictly secret. Nor are 
1 Sacred Books wanting to the Sect ; these they call Fashion- 

* able Novels: however, the Canon is not completed, and some 
' are canonical and others not. 

* Of such Sacred Books I, not without expense, procured 

* myself some samples ; and in hope of true insight, and with 
4 the zeal which beseems an Inquirer into Clothes, set to inter- 
' pret and study them. But wholly to no purpose : that tough 



192 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

' faculty of reading, for which the world will not refuse me 
1 credit, was here for the first time foiled and set at naught. In 

* vain that I summoned my whole energies (mich weidlich an- 
1 strengte), and did my very utmost ; at the end of some short 
1 space, I was uniformly seized with not so much what I can 
' call a drumming in my ears, as a kind of infinite, unsufferable, 
' Jew's-harping and scrannel-piping there ; to which the fright- 
1 fullest species of Magnetic Sleep soon supervened. And if I 
1 strove to shake this away, and absolutely would not yield, 
1 there came a hitherto unfelt sensation, as of Delirium Tre- 

* mens, and a melting into total deliquium : till at last, by order 
1 of the Doctor, dreading ruin to my whole intellectual and 
1 bodily faculties, and a general breaking-up of the constitution, 
1 I reluctantly but determinedly forbore. Was there some mi- 
1 racle at work here ; like those Fire-balls, and supernal and 
1 infernal prodigies, which, in the case of the Jewish Mysteries, 
1 have also more than once scared-back the Alien ? Be this as 
1 it may, such failure on my part, after best efforts, must ex- 
1 cuse the imperfection of this sketch ; altogether incomplete, 
' yet the completest I could give of a Sect too singular to be 

* omitted. 

' Loving my own life and senses as I do, no power shall in- 

* duce me, as a private individual, to open another Fashionable 

* Novel. But luckily, in this dilemma, comes a hand from the 
1 clouds ; whereby if not victory, deliverance is held out to me. 
« Round one of those Book-packages, which the Stillschweig- 
1 en'sche Buchhandlung is in the habit of importing from Eng- 
' land, come, as is usual, various waste' printed-sheets (Macu- 
1 latur -blatter), by way of interior wrappage : into these the 
' Clothes-Philosopher, with a certain Mohamedan reverence even 
4 for waste-paper, where curious knowledge will sometimes hover, 
■ disdains not to cast his eye. Readers may judge of his aston- 
4 ishment when on such a defaced stray-sheet, probably the out- 
1 cast fraction of some English Periodical, such as they name 
1 Magazine, appears something like a Dissertation on this very 

* subject of Fashionable Novels I It sets out, indeed, chiefly 

* from a Secular point of view ; directing itself, not without as- 
' perity, against some to me unknown individual named Pelham, 
1 who seems to be a Mystagogue, and leading Teacher and 
4 Preacher of the Sect ; so that, what indeed otherwise was not 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 193 

' to be expected in such a fugitive fragmentary sheet, the true 
' secret, the Religious physiognomy and physiology of the Dan- 
1 diacal Body, is nowise laid fully open there. Nevertheless, 
' scattered lights do from time to time sparkle out, whereby I 
1 have endeavoured to profit. Nay, in one passage selected from 
' the Prophecies, or Mythic Theogonies, or whatever they are 
1 (for the style seems very mixed) of this Mystagogue, I find 
1 what appears to be a Confession of Faith, or Whole Duty of 

* Man, according to the tenets of that Sect. Which Confession 

* or Whole Duty, therefore, as proceeding from a source so 
' authentic, I shall here arrange under Seven distinct Articles, 
' and in very abridged shape lay before the German world ; 
' therewith taking leave of this matter. Observe also, that to 

* avoid possibility of error, I, as far as may be, quote literally 

* from the Original : 

'ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

"1. Coats should have nothing of the triangle about them; 

' at the same time, wrinkles behind should be carefully avoided. 

"2. The collar is a very important point : it should be low 

* behind, and slightly rolled. 

" 3. No license of fashion can allow a man of delicate taste 
' to adopt the posterial luxuriance of a Hottentot. 

"4. There is safety in a swallow-tail. 

"5. The good sense of a gentleman is nowhere more finely 
1 developed than in his rings. 

" 6. It is permitted to mankind, under certain restrictions, 
' to wear white waistcoats. 

" 7. The trousers must be exceedingly tight across the hips.'* 

1 All which Propositions I, for the present, content myself 
1 with modestly but peremptorily and irrevocably denying. 

' In strange contrast with this Dandiacal Body stands an- 
1 other British Sect, originally, as I understand, of Ireland, 
' where its chief seat still is ; but known also in the main Is- 
1 land, and indeed everywhere rapidly spreading. As this Sect 

* has hitherto emitted no Canonical Books, it remains to me in 

* the same state of obscurity as the Dandiacal, which has pub- 
1 lished Books that the unassisted human faculties are inade- 

* quate to read. The members appear to be designated by a 

* considerable diversity of names, according to their various 

o 



194 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

1 places of establishment : in England they are generally called 
1 the Drudge Sect ; also, unphilosophically enough, the White 

* Negroes j and, chiefly in scorn by those of other communions, 
' the Ragged-Beggar Sect. In Scotland, again, I find them en- 
1 titled Hallaiiskakers, or the Stook of Duds Sect ; any indivi- 

* dual communicant is named Stook of Duds (that is, Shock of 
1 Rags), in allusion, doubtless, to their professional Costume. 
' While in Ireland, which, as mentioned, is their grand parent 

* hive, they go by a perplexing multiplicity of designations, such 
' as Bogtrottei's, Redshanks, Ribbonmen, Cottiers, Peep-of-Day 
s Boys, Babes of the Wood, Rockites, Poor-Slaves : which last, 
4 however, seems to be the primary and generic name ; whereto, 
1 probably enough, the others are only subsidiary species, or 
4 slight varieties ; or, at most, propagated offsets from the parent 
' stem, whose minute subdivisions, and shades of difference, 
1 it were here loss of time to dwell on. Enough for us to under- 
' stand, what seems indubitable, that the original Sect is that 

* of the Poor-Slaves j whose doctrines, practices, and funda- 
1 mental characteristics pervade and animate the whole Body, 
4 howsoever denominated or outwardly diversified. 

'The precise speculative tenets of this Brotherhood : how 

* the Universe, and Man, and Man's Life, picture themselves 
1 to the mind of an Irish Poor-Slave ; with what feelings and 
' opinions he looks forward on the Future, round on the Pre- 
1 sent, back on the Past, it were extremely difficult to specify. 
' Something Monastic there appears to be in their Constitution : 
1 we find them bound by the two Monastic Vows, of Poverty 
1 and Obedience ; which Vows, especially the former, it is said, 
' they observe with great strictness ; nay, as I have understood 
1 it, they are pledged, and be it by any solemn Nazarene ordi- 

* nation or not, irrevocably consecrated thereto, even before 
1 birth. That the third Monastic Vow, of Chastity, is rigidly en- 

* forced among them, I find no ground to conjecture. 

* Furthermore, they appear to imitate the Dandiacal Sect 
4 in their grand principle of wearing a peculiar Costume. Of 
1 which Irish Poor-Slave Costume no description will indeed be 
' found in the present Volume ; for this reason, that by the im- 

* perfect organ of Language it did not seem describable. Their 

* raiment consists of innumerable skirts, lappets and irregular 

* wings, of all cloths and of all colours ; through the labyrinthic 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 195 

4 intricacies of which their bodies are introduced by some un- 

* known process. It is fastened together by a multiplex com- 
' bination of buttons, thrums and skewers ; to which frequently 

* is added a girdle of leather, of hempen or even of straw rope, 
i round the loins. To straw rope, indeed, they seem partial, 
' and often wear it by way of sandals. In head-dress they affect 
' a certain freedom : hats with partial brim, without crown, or 
4 with only a loose, hinged, or valved crown ; in the former 
4 case, they sometimes invert the hat, and wear it brim upper- 

* most, like a University-cap, with what view is unknown. 

' The name Poor-Slaves seems to indicate a Slavonic, Polish, 
' or Russian origin : not so, however, the interior essence and 

* spirit of their Superstition, which rather displays a Teutonic 
4 or Druidical character. One might fancy them worshippers 

* of Hertha, or the Earth : for they dig and affectionately work 

* continually in her bosom ; or else, shut-up in private Oratories, 

* meditate and manipulate the substances derived from her ; 

* seldom looking-up towards the Heavenly Luminaries, and then 

* with comparative indifference. Like the Druids, on the other 

* hand, they live in dark dwellings ; often even breaking their 

* glass-windows, where they find such, and stuffing them up with 
s pieces of raiment, or other opaque substances, till the fit ob- 

* scurity is restored. Again, like all followers of Nature- Wor- 

* ship, they are liable to outbreakings of an enthusiasm rising 
to ferocity ; and burn men, if not in wicker idols, yet in sod 

* cottages. 

* In respect of diet, they have also their observances. All 

* Poor- Slaves are Rhizophagous (or Root -eaters) ; a few are 

* Ichthyophagous, and use Salted Herrings : other animal food 

* they abstain from ; except indeed, with perhaps some strange 

* inverted fragment of a Brahminical feeling, such animals as 
4 die a natural death. Their universal sustenance is the root 

* named Potato, cooked by fire alone ; and generally without 
' condiment or relish of any kind, save an unknown condiment 
' named Point \ into the meaning of which I have vainly in- 

* quired ; the victual Poialoes-and-Point not appearing, at least 

* not with specific accuracy of description, in any European 
4 Cookery-Book whatever. For drink, they use, with an almost 
' epigrammatic counterpoise o£ taste, Milk, which is the mildest 

* of liquors, and Potheen, which is the fiercest. This latter I 



196 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

• have tasted, as well as the English Blue-Ruin, and the Scotch 
4 Whisky, analogous fluids used by the Sect in those countries : 
1 it evidently contains some form of alcohol, in the highest state 
1 of concentration, though disguised with acrid oils ; and is, en 
4 the whole, the most pungent substance known to me, — indeed, 
1 a perfect liquid fire. In all their Religious Solemnities, Po- 
4 theen is said to be an indispensable requisite, and largely 
4 consumed. 

* An Irish Traveller, of perhaps common veracity, who pre- 
' sents himself under the to me unmeaning title of The late 
1 John Bernai'd, offers the following sketch of a domestic esta- 

* blishment, the inmates whereof, though such is not stated ex- 
1 pressly, appear to have been of that Faith. Thereby shall my 
1 German readers now behold an Irish Poor-Slave, as it were 
4 with their own eyes ; and even see him at meat. Moreover, 
4 in the so precious waste-paper sheet above mentioned, I have 
4 found some corresponding picture of a Dandiacal Household, 
1 painted by that same Dandiacal Mystagogue, or Theogonist : 
1 this also, by way of counterpart and contrast, the world shall 
« look into. 

4 First, therefore, of the Poor-Slave, who appears likewise to 
' have been a species cf Innkeeper. I quote from the original : 

Poor-Slave Household. 

6 " The furniture of this Caravansera consisted of a large 
4 iron Pot, two oaken Tables, two Benches, two Chairs, and a 
1 Potheen Noggin. There was a Loft above (attainable by a 
' ladder), upon which the inmates slept ; and the space below 
4 was divided by a hurdle into two Apartments ; the one for 
4 their cow and pig, the other for themselves and guests. On 
4 entering the house we discovered the family, eleven in num- 
4 ber, at dinner : the father sitting at the top, the mother at the 
' bottom, the children on each side, of a large oaken Board, 
' which was scooped-out in the middle, like a trough, to receive 
4 the contents of their Pot of Potatoes. Little holes were cut 
' at equal distances to contain Salt ; and a bowl of Milk stood 
. ' on the table : all the luxuries of meat and beer, bread, knives 
■ and dishes were dispensed with." The Poor-Slave himself 
4 our Traveller found, as he says, broad-backed, black-browed, 
4 of great personal strength, and mouth from ear to ear. His 



CHM>. X. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 197 

' Wife was a sun-browned but well-featured woman ; and his 
1 young ones, bare and chubby, had the appetite of ravens. Of 
1 their Philosophical or Religious tenets or observances, no no- 
' tice or hint. 

* But now, secondly, 'of the Dandiacal Household; in which, 

* truly, that often-mentioned Mystagogue and inspired Penman 

* himself has his abode : 

Dandiacal Household. 

' " A Dressing-room splendidly furnished ; violet-coloured 

* curtains, chairs and ottomans of the same hue. Two full- 
' length Mirrors are placed, one on each side of a table, which 
1 supports the luxuries of the Toilet. Several Bottles of Per- 

* fumes, arranged in a peculiar fashion, stand upon a smaller 
' table of mother-of-pearl : opposite to these are placed the ap- 
1 purtenances of Lavation richly wrought in frosted silver. A 
1 Wardrobe of Buhl is on the left ; the doors of which, being 
' partly open, discover a profusion of Clothes ; Shoes of a sin- 
6 gularly small size monopolise the lower shelves. Fronting the 
' wardrobe a door ajar gives some slight glimpse of a Bath- 

* room. Folding-doors in the background. — Enter the Author," 
1 our Theogonist in person, "obsequiously preceded by a French 
1 Valet, in white silk Jacket and cambric Apron." 

1 Such are the two Sects which, at this moment, divide the 
' more unsettled portion of the British People ; and agitate that 
' ever-vexed country. To the eye of the political Seer, their 
' mutual relation, pregnant with the elements of discord and 
« hostility, is far from consoling. These two principles of Dan- 
' diacal Self-worship or Demon-worship, and Poor-Slavish or 

* Drudgical Earth-worship, or whatever that same Drudgism 
1 may be, do as yet indeed manifest themselves under distant 
' and nowise considerable shapes : nevertheless, in their roots 

* and subterranean ramifications, they extend through the entire 
1 structure of Society, and work unweariedly in the secret depths 

* of English national Existence ; striving to separate and isolate 
' it into two contradictory, uncommunicating masses. 

1 In numbers, and even individual strength, the Poor-Slaves 

* or Drudges, it would seem, are hourly increasing. The Dan- 
' diacal, again, is by nature no proselytising Sect ; but it boasts 



198 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

' of great hereditary resources, and is strong by union ; whereas 

* the Drudges, split into parties, have as yet no rallying-point ; 

* or at best only cooperate by means of partial secret affiliations. 
1 If, indeed, there were to arise a Communion of Drudges, as 
' there is already a Communion of Saints, what strangest effects 

* would follow therefrom ! Dandyism as yet affects to look- 

* down on Drudgism : but perhaps the hour of trial, when it 

* will be practically seen which ought to look down, and which 
' up, is not so distant. 

1 To me it seems probable that the two Sects will one day 
1 part England between them ; each recruiting itself from the 
1 intermediate ranks, till there be none left to enlist on either 
' side. Those Dandiacal Manicheans, with the host of Dandy- 
1 ising Christians, will form one body : the Drudges, gathering 
1 round them whosoever is Drudgical, be he Christian or Infidel 

* Pagan ; sweeping-up likewise all manner of Utilitarians, Radi- 
1 cals, refractory Potwallopers, and so forth, into their general 
1 mass, will form another. I could liken Dandyism and Drudg- 

* ism to two bottomless boiling Whirlpools that had broken-out 
1 on opposite quarters of the firm land : as yet they appear only 
1 disquieted, foolishly bubbling wells, which man's art might 
' cover-in ; yet mark them, their diameter is daily widening : 
1 they are hollow Cones that boil-up from the infinite Deep, 
1 over which your firm land is but a thin crust or rind ! Thus 
' daily is the intermediate land crumbling-in, daily the empire 

* of the two Buchan-Bullers extending ; till now there is but a 

■ foot-plank, a mere film of Land between them ; this too is 
1 washed away : and then — we have the true Hell of Waters, and 
4 Noah's Deluge is outdeluged ! 

* Or better, I might call them two boundless, and indeed 
1 unexampled Electric Machines (turned by the " Machinery of 

■ Society"), with batteries of opposite quality ; Drudgism the 
1 Negative, Dandyism the Positive : one attracts hourly towards 

* it and appropriates all the Positive Electricity of the nation 
1 (namely, the Money thereof) ; the other is equally busy with 
1 the Negative (that is to say the Hunger), which is equally 
1 potent. Hitherto you see only partial transient sparkles and 

■ sputters : but wait a little, till the entire nation is in an elec- 

* trie state ; till your whole vital Electricity, no longer health- 
1 fully Neutral, is cut into two isolated portions of Positive and 



chap, xl TAILORS. 199 

1 Negative (of Money and of Hunger) ; and stands there bottled- 
4 up in two World-Batteries ! The stirring of a child's finger 
1 brings the two together ; and then — What then ? The Earth 

* is but shivered into impalpable smoke by that Doom's-thun- 

* derpeal ; the Sun misses one of his Planets in Space, and 
1 thenceforth there are no eclipses of the Moon. — Or better still, 
' I might liken' — 

O, enough, enough of likenings and similitudes ; in excess 
of which, truly, it is hard to say whether Teufelsdrockh or our- 
selves sin the more. 

We have often blamed him for a habit of wire-drawing and 
over-refining ; from of old we have been familiar with his tend- 
ency to Mysticism and Religiosity, whereby in everything he 
was still scenting-out Religion : but never perhaps did these 
amaurosis-surTusions so cloud and distort his otherwise most 
piercing vision, as in this of the Dandiacal Body / Or was 
there something of intended satire ; is the Professor and Seer 
not quite the blinkard he affects to be ? Of an ordinary mortal 
we should have decisively answered in the affirmative ; but with 
a Teufelsdrockh there ever hovers some shade of doubt. It 
the mean while, if satire v/ere actually intended, the case is 
little better. There are not wanting men who will answer : 
Does your Professor take us for simpletons ? His irony has 
overshot itself; we see through it, and perhaps through him. 



CHAPTER XL 

TAILORS. 

Thus, however, has our first Practical Inference from the 
Clothes -Philosophy, that which respects Dandies, been suffi- 
ciently drawn ; and we come now to the second, concerning 
Tailors. On this latter our opinion happily quite coincides with 
that of Teufelsdrockh himself, as expressed in the concluding 
page of his Volume, to whom, therefore, we willingly give place. 
Let him speak his own last words, in his own way : 

■ Upwards of a century,' says he, 'must elapse, and still the 



2oo • SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

1 bleeding fight of Freedom be fought, whoso is noblest perish- 
' ing in the van, and thrones be hurled on altars like Pelion on 
' Ossa, and the Moloch of Iniquity have his victims, and the 
1 Michael of Justice his martyrs, before Tailors can be admitted 
1 to their true prerogatives of manhood, and this last wound of 
' suffering Humanity be closed. 

' If aught in the history of the world's blindness could sur- 
' prise us, here might we indeed pause and wonder. An idea 
1 has gone abroad, and fixed itself down into a wide -spreading 
1 rooted error, that Tailors are a distinct species in Physiology, 
1 not Men, but fractional Parts of a Man. Call any one a 
' Schneider (Cutter, Tailor), is it not, in our dislocated, hood- 
1 winked, and indeed delirious condition of Society, equivalent 
' to defying his perpetual fellest enmity ? The epithet Schneider- 
1 massig (tailor-like) betokens an otherwise unapproachable de- 
' gree of pusillanimity : we introduce a Tailor's -Melancholy, 
1 more opprobrious than any Leprosy, into our Books of Medi- 
1 cine ; and fable I know not what of his generating it by living 
1 on Cabbage. Why should I speak of Hans Sachs (himself a 
' Shoemaker, or kind of Leather-Tailor), with his Schneider mit 
4 dem Panzer? Why of Shakspeare, in his Taming of the Shrew, 
' and elsewhere ? Does it not stand on record that the English 
1 Queen Elizabeth, receiving a deputation of Eighteen Tailors, 

* addressed them with a "Good morning, gentlemen both!" 
' Did not the same virago boast that she had a Cavalry Regi- 
1 ment, whereof neither horse nor man could be injured ; her 
1 Regiment, namely, of Tailors on Mares ? Thus everywhere 
1 is the falsehood taken for granted, and acted on as an indis- 

* putable fact. 

* Nevertheless, need I put the question to any Physiologist, 
1 whether it is disputable or not ? Seems it not at least pre- 

* sumable, that, under his Clothes, the Tailor has bones and 
1 viscera, and other muscles than the sartorious ? Which func- 

* tion of manhood is the Tailor not conjectured to perform ? 
' Can he not arrest for debt ? Is he not in most countries a 
1 tax-paying animal ? 

■ To no reader of this Volume can it be doubtful which con- 

* viction is mine. Nay if the fruit of these long vigils, and almost 
1 preternatural Inquiries, is not to perish utterly, the world will 
' have approximated towards a higher Truth ; and the doctrine, 



chap. xi. TAILORS. 2CI 

1 wliich Swift, with the keen forecast of genius, dimly anticipated, 
1 will stand revealed in clear light : that the Tailor is not only 
4 a Man, but something of a Creator or Divinity. Of Franklin 
4 it was said, that "he snatched the Thunder from Heaven and 
- the Sceptre from Kings :" but which is greater, I would ask, 
4 he that lends, or he that snatches ? For, looking away from 

* individual cases, and how a Man is by the Tailor new-created 

* into a Nobleman, and clothed not only with Wool but with 

* Dignity and a Mystic Dominion, — is not the fair fabric of 
1 Society itself, with all its royal mantles and pontifical stoles, 
4 whereby, from nakedness and dismemberment, we are organ- 
1 ised into Polities, into nations, and a whole cooperating Man- 
1 kind, the creation, as has here been often irrefragably evinced, 
1 of the Tailor alone ? — What too are all Poets and moral 
1 Teachers, but a species of Metaphorical Tailors ? Touching 
1 which high Guild the greatest living Guild-brother has triumph- 
4 antly asked us : " Nay if thou wilt have it, who but the Poet 

* first made Gods for men ; brought them down to us ; and 
1 raised us up to them ?" 

1 And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the hard basis 
4 of his Shopboard, the world treats with contumely, as the ninth 
4 part of a man ! Look up, thou much-injured one, look up with 

* the kindling eye of hope, and prophetic bodings of a noble 

* better time. Too long hast thou sat there, on crossed legs, 

* wearing thy ankle-joints to horn ; like some sacred Anchorite, 

* or Catholic Fakir, doing penance, drawing down Heaven's 

* richest blessings, for a world that scoffed at thee. Be of hope ! 

* Already streaks of blue peer through our clouds ; the thick 
4 gloom of Ignorance is rolling asunder, and it will be Day. 
4 Mankind will repay with interest their long-accumulated debt : 

* the Anchorite that was scoffed at will be worshipped ; the 
' Fraction will become not an Integer only, but a Square and 
1 Cube. With astonishment the world will recognise that the 
4 Tailor is its Hierophant and Hierarch, or even its God. 

'As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and looked upon 
4 these Four-and-Twenty Tailors, sewing and embroidering that 
4 rich Cloth, which the Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of 
4 Mecca, I thought within myself : How many other Unholies 
4 has your covering Art made holy, besides this Arabian Whin- 

* stone ! 



202 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

1 Still more touching was it when, turning the corner of a 
■ lane, in the Scottish Town of Edinburgh, I came upon a Sign- 
1 post, whereon stood written that such and such a one was 
1 "Breeches -Maker to his Majesty;" and stood painted the 
' Effigies of a Pair of Leather Breeches, and between the knees 
' these memorable words, Sic itur ad astra. Was not this 
1 the martyr prison-speech of a Tailor sighing indeed in bonds, 
' yet sighing towards deliverance, and prophetically appealing 
' to a better day ? A day of justice, when the worth of Breeches 
1 would be revealed to man, and the Scissors become forever 

* venerable. 

* Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal been 
1 altogether in vain. It was in this high moment, when the 
' soul, rent, as it were, and shed asunder, is open to inspiring 
1 influence, that I first conceived this Work on Clothes : the 
1 greatest I can ever hope to do ; which has already, after long 
' retardations, occupied, and will yet occupy, so large a section 

* of my Life ; and of which the Primary and simpler Portion 
1 may here find its conclusion.' 



CHAPTER XII. 

FAREWELL. 

So have we endeavoured, from the enormous, amorphous 
Plum-pudding, more like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teu- 
felsdrockh had kneaded for his fellow mortals, to pick out the 
choicest Plums, and present them separately on a cover of our 
own. A laborious, perhaps a thankless enterprise ; in which, 
however, something of hope has occasionally cheered us, and 
of which we can now wash our hands not altogether without 
satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morsel 
of spiritual nourishment have been added to the scanty ration 
of our beloved British world, what nobler recompense could the 
Editor desire ? If it prove otherwise, why should he murmur ? 
Was not this a Task which Destiny, in any case, had appointed 
him ; which having now done with, he sees his general Day's- 
work so much the lighter, so much the shorter ? 



chap. xii. FAREWELL. 203 

Of Professor Teufelsdrockh it seems impossible to take leave 
without a mingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude and dis- 
approval. Who will not regret that talents, which might have 
profited in the higher walks of Philosophy, or in Art itself, have 
been so much devoted to a rummaging among lumber-rooms ; 
nay too often to a scraping in kennels, where lost rings and 
diamond-necklaces are nowise the sole conquests ? Regret is 
unavoidable ; yet censure were loss of time. To cure him of his 
mad humours British Criticism would essay in vain : enough 
for her if she can, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such 
among ourselves. What a result, should this piebald, entangled, 
hyper-metaphorical style of writing, not to say of thinking, be- 
come general among our Literary men ! As it might so easily 
do. Thus has not the Editor himself, working over Teufels- 
drockh's German, lost much of his own English purity ? Even 
as the smaller whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and made 
to whirl along with it, so has the lesser mind, in this instance, 
been forced to become portion of the greater, and, like it, see 
all things figuratively : which habit time and assiduous effort 
will be needed to eradicate. 

Nevertheless, wayward as our Professor shows himself, is 
there any reader that can part with him in declared enmity ? 
Let us confess, there is that in the wild, much-suffering, much- 
inflicting man, which almost attaches us. His attitude, we will 
hope and believe, is that of a man who had said to Cant, Be- 
gone ; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst not be ; and to 
Truth, Be thou in place of all to me : a man who had manfully 
defied the 'Time-prince,' or Devil, to his face; nay perhaps, 
Hannibal-like, was mysteriously consecrated from birth to that 
warfare, and now stood minded to wage the same, by all weap- 
ons, in all places, at all times. In such a cause, any soldier, 
were he but a Polack Scythe-man, shall be welcome. 

Still the question returns on us : How could a man occa- 
sionally of keen insight, not without keen sense of propriety, 
who had real Thoughts to communicate, resolve to emit them in 
a shape bordering so closely on the absurd ? Which question 
he were wiser than the present Editor who should satisfactorily 
answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been, that perhaps Ne- 
cessity as well as Choice was concerned in it. Seems it not 
conceivable that, in a Life like our Professor's, where so much 



204 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

bountifully given by Nature had in Practice failed and misgone, 
Literature also would never rightly prosper : that striving with 
his characteristic vehemence to paint this and the other Pic- 
ture, and ever without success, he at last desperately dashes his 
sponge, full of all colours, against the canvas, to try whether it 
will paint Foam ? With all his stillness, there were perhaps in 
Teufelsdrockh desperation enough for this. 

A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It 
is, that Teufelsdrockh is not without some touch of the uni- 
versal feeling, a wish to proselytise. How often already have 
we paused, uncertain whether the basis of this so enigmatic na- 
ture were really Stoicism and Despair, or Love and Hope only 
seared into the figure of these ! Remarkable, moreover, is this 
saying of his : 'How were Friendship possible ? In mutual 

* devotedness to the Good and True : otherwise impossible ; 
4 except as Armed Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. 
' A man, be the Heavens ever praised, is sufficient for himself; 
' yet were ten men, united in Love, capable of being and of 

* doing what ten thousand singly would fail in. Infinite is the 
' help man can yield to man.' And now in conjunction there- 
with consider this other : ' It is the Night of the World, and still 
' long till it be Day : we wander amid the glimmer of smoking 
' ruins, and the Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as if blotted 
s out for a season ; and two immeasurable Phantoms, Hypo- 

* crisy and Atheism, with the Gov/1, Sensuality, stalk abroad 
4 over the Earth, and call it theirs : well at ease are the Sleep- 
1 ers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream.' 

But what of the awestruck Wakeful who find it a Reality ? 
Should not these unite ; since even an authentic Spectre is not 
visible to Two ? — In which case were this enormous Clothes- 
Volume properly an enormous Pitchpan, which our Teufels- 
drockh in his lone watchtower had kindled, that it might flame 
far and wide through the Night, and many a disconsolately 
wandering spirit be guided thither to a Brother's bosom ! — We 
say as before, with all his malign Indifference, who knows what 
mad Hopes this man may harbour ? 

Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which har- 
monises ill with such conjecture ; and, indeed, were Teufels- 
drockh made like other men, might as good as altogether sub- 
vert it. Namely, that while the Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, 



chap. xii. FAREWELL. 203 

the Watchman had quitted it ; that no pilgrim could now ask 
him: Watchman, what of the Night? Professor Teufelsdrockh, 
be it known, is no longer visibly present at Weissnichtwo, but 
again to all appearance lost in space ! Some time ago, the Hof - 
rath Heuschrecke was pleased to favour us with another copious 
Epistle; wherein much is said about the 'Population-Institute;' 
much repeated in praise of the Paper-bag Documents, the hiero- 
glyphic nature of which our Hofrath still seems not to have sur- 
mised ; and, lastly, the strangest occurrence communicated, to us 
for the first* time, in the following paragraph : 

1 Ew. Wohlgeboren will have seen from the public Prints, 
' with what affectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weiss- 
' nichtwo regards the disappearance of her Sage. Might but 
' the united voice of Germany prevail on him to return ; nay 
' could we but so much as elucidate for ourselves by what mys- 
' tery he went away ! But, alas, old Lieschen experiences or 
1 affects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance : 

* in the Wahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up ; the Privy 
' Council itself can hitherto elicit no answer. 

1 It had been remarked that while the agitating news of those 
1 Parisian Three Days flew from mouth to mouth, and dinned 
' every ear in Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdrockh was not known, 

* at the Gans or elsewhere, to have spoken, for a whole week, 
1 any syllable except once these three : Es geht an (It is be- 
c ginning). Shortly after, as Ew. Wohlgeboren knows, was the 
1 public tranquillity here, as in Berlin, threatened by a Sedition 
' of the Tailors. Nor did there want Evil-wishers, or perhaps 
1 mere desperate Alarmists, who asserted that the closing Chapter 
' of the Clothes-Volume was to blame. In this appalling crisis, 

* the serenity of our Philosopher was indescribable : nay, per- 
' haps through one humble individual, something thereof might 
■ pass into the Rath (Council) itself, and so contribute to the 
' country's deliverance. The Tailors are now entirely pacifi- 
1 cated. — 

1 To neither of these two incidents can I attribute our loss : 
1 yet still comes there the shadow of a suspicion out of Paris and 
1 its Politics. For example, when the Saint- Simonian Society 
1 transmitted its Propositions hither, and the whole Gans was 
1 one vast cackle of laughter, lamentation and astonishment, our 

* Sage sat mute ; and at the end of the third evening said merely : 



2o6 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

4 * Here also are men who have discovered, not without amaze- 
' ment, that Man is still Man ; of which high, long-forgotten 
' Truth you already see them make a false application." Since 

* then, as has been ascertained by examination of the Post-Direc- 

* tor, there passed at least one Letter with its Answer between 
{ the Messieurs Bazard-Enfantin and our Professor himself; of 
■ what tenor can now only be conjectured. On the fifth night 
' following, he was seen for the last time I 

' Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the hos- 

* tile Sects that convulse our Era, been spirited away by certain 

* of their emissaries ; or did he go forth voluntarily to their head- 
' quarters to confer with them and confront them? Reason we 

* have, at least of a negative sort, to believe the Lost still liv- 
1 ing ; our widowed heart also whispers that ere long he will 

himself give a sign. Otherwise, indeed, his archives must, one 

* day, be opened by Authority ; where much, perhaps the Palin- 
4 genesie itself, is thought to be reposited.' 

Thus far the Hofrath ; who vanishes, as is his wont, too like 
an Ignis Fatuus, leaving the dark still darker. 

So that Teufelsdrockh's public Histoiy were not done, then, 
or reduced to an even, unromantic tenor ; nay, perhaps the better 
part thereof were only beginning? We stand in a region of con- 
jectures, where substance has melted into shadow, and one can- 
not be distinguished from the other. May Time, which solves 
or suppresses all problems, throw glad light on this also ! Our 
own private conjecture, now amounting almost to certainty, is 
that, safe-moored in some stillest obscurity, not to lie always 
still, Teufelsdrockh is actually in London ! 

Here, however, can the present Editor, with an ambrosial 
joy as of over-weariness falling into sleep, lay down his pen. 
Well does he know, if human testimony be worth aught, thait 
to innumerable British readers likewise, this is a satisfying con- 
summation; that innumerable British readers consider him, dur- 
ing these current months, but as an uneasy interruption to their 
ways of thought and digestion ; and indicate so much, not with- 
out a certain irritancy and even spoken invective. For which, 
as for other mercies, ought not he to thank the Upper Powers? 
To one and all of you, O irritated readers, he, with outstretched 
arms and open heart, will wave a kind farewell. Thou too, 



chap. xii. FAREWELL. 207 

miraculous Entity, who namest thyself Yorke and Oliver, and 
with thy vivacities and genialities, with thy ail-too Irish mirth 
and madness, and odour of palled punch, makest such strange 
work, farewell ; long as thou canst, izxz-well ! Have we not, 
in the course of Eternity, travelled some months of our Life- 
journey in partial sight of one another \ have we not existed 
together, though in a state of quarrel ? 



APPENDIX : 
TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS, 



I 



This questionable little Book was undoubtedly written among 
the mountain solitudes, in 1831 ; but, owing to impediments na- 
tural and accidental, could not, for seven years more, appear as 
a Volume in England ; — and had at last to clip itself in pieces, 
and be content to struggle out, bit by bit, in some courageous 
Magazine that offered. Whereby now, to certain idly curious 
readers, and even to myself till I make study, the insignificant 
but at last irritating question, What its real history and chrono- 
logy are, is, if not insoluble, considerably involved in haze. 

To the first English Edition, 1838, which an American, or 
two American had now opened the way for, there was slight- 
ingly prefixed, under the title ' Tesfanonies of Authors,' some 
straggle of real documents, which, now that I find it again, sets 
the matter into clear light and sequence ; — and shall here, for 
removal of idle stumbling-blocks and nugatory guessings from 
the path of every reader, be reprinted as it stoo<L (Author's 
Note 0/1S6S.) 



TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. 
I. Highest Class, Bookseller's Taster. 

Taster to Bookseller. — " The Author of Teufelsdrockh is a 
person of talent ; his work displays here and there some felicity 
of thought and expression, considerable fancy and knowledge : 
but whether or not it would take with the public seems doubt- 
ful. For a jeu d' esprit of that kind it is too long ; it would 
have suited better as an essay or article than as a volume. The 
Author has no great tact ; his wit is frequently heavy ; and re- 
minds one of the German Baron who took to leaping on tables, 
and answered that he was learning to be lively. Is the work a 
translation ?" 

Bookseller to Editor. — "Allow me to say that such a writer 
requires only a little more tact to produce a popular as well as 



212 APPENDIX. 

an able work. Directly on receiving your permission, I sent 
your Ms. to a gentleman in the highest class of men of letters, 
and an accomplished German scholar : I now enclose you his 
opinion, which, you may rely upon it, is a just one ; and I have 
too high an opinion of your good sense to" &c. &c. — Ms. {penes 
nos), London, ijth September 1831. 

II. Critic of the Sun. 

" Fraser^s Magazine exhibits the usual brilliancy, and also 
the" &c. (i Sartor Resartus is what old Dennis used to call 'a 
neap of clotted nonsense,' mixed however, here and there, with 
passages marked by thought and striking poetic vigour. But 
what does the writer mean by 'Baphometic fire-baptism'? Why 
cannot he lay aside his pedantry, and write so as to make him- 
self generally intelligible ? We quote by way of curiosity a sen- 
tence from the Sartor Resartusj which may be read either 
backwards or forwards, for it is equally intelligible either way : 
indeed, by beginning at the tail, and so working up to the head, 
we think the reader will stand the fairest chance of getting at 
its meaning: 'The fire-baptised soul, long so scathed and thun- 
der-riven, here feels its own freedom ; which feeling is its Ba- 
phometic baptism : the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus 
gained by assault, and will keep inexpugnable ; outwards from 
which the remaining dominions, not indeed without hard bat- 
tering, will doubtless by degrees be conquered and pacificated.' 
Here is a" — — Sun Newspaper, 1st April 1834. 

III. North-American Reviewer. 

"After a careful survey of the whole ground, our 

belief is that no such persons as Professor Teufelsdrockh or 
Counsellor Heuschrecke ever existed ; that the six Paper-bags, 
with their China-ink inscriptions and multifarious contents, are 
a mere figment of the brain ; that the ' present Editor' is the 
only person who has ever written upon the Philosophy of Clothes ; 
and that the Sartor Resartus is the only treatise that has yet 
appeared upon that subject ; — in short, that the whole account 
of the origin of the work before us, which the supposed Editor 
relates with so much gravity, and of which we have given a 
brief abstract, is, in plain English, a hum. 



TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. 213 

'Without troubling our readers at any great length with our 
reasons for entertaining these suspicions, we may remark, that 
the absence of all other information on the subject, except what 
is contained in the work, is itself a fact of a most significant 
character. The whole German press, as well as the particular 
one where the work purports to have been printed, seems to be 
under the control of Stillschweigen and Co. — Silence and Com^ 
pany. If the Clothes-Philosophy and its author are making so 
great a sensation throughout Germany as is pretended, how hap- 
pens it that the only notice we have of the fact is contained in 
a few numbers of a monthly Magazine published at London ? 
How happens it that no intelligence about the matter has come 
out directly to this country ? We pique ourselves here in New 
England upon knowing at least as much of what is going on in 
the literary way in the old Dutch Mother-land as our brethren 
of the fast-anchored Isle; but thus far we have no tidings what- 
ever of the 'extensive close-printed close-meditated volume,' which 
forms the subject of this pretended commentary, Again, we would 
respectfully inquire of the ' present Editor' upon what part of 
the map of Germany we are to look for the city of Weissnichtwo 
— ' Know-not-where' — at which place the work is supposed to 
have been printed, and the Author to have resided. It has been 
our fortune to visit several portions of the German territory, and 
to examine pretty carefully, at different times and for various 
purposes, maps of the whole ; but we have no recollection of 
any such place. We suspect that the city of Know-not-where 
might be called, with at least as much propriety, Nobody-knows- 
where, and is to be found in the kingdom of Nowhere. Again, 
the village of Entepfuhl — ' Duck-pond' — where the supposed 
Author of the work is said to have passed his youth, and that 
oiHinterschlag, where he had his education, are equally foreign 
to our geography. Duck-ponds enough there undoubtedly are 
in almost every village in Germany, as the traveller in that coun- 
try knows too well to his cost, but any particular village denomi- 
nated Duck-pond is to us altogether terra incognita. The names 
of the personages are not less singular than those of the places. 
Who can refrain from a smile at the yoking together of such a 
pair of appellatives as Diogenes Teufelsdrockh ? The supposed 
bearer of this strange title is represented as admitting, in his 
pretended autobiography, that ' he had searched to no purpose 



214 APPENDIX, 

through all the Heralds' books in and without the German em- 
pire, and through all manner of Subscribers'-lists, Militia-rolls, 
and other Name-catalogues,' but had nowhere been able to find 
1 the name Teufelsdrockh, except as appended to his own per- 
son.' We can readily believe this, and we doubt very much 
whether any Christian parent would think of condemning a son 
to carry through life the burden of so unpleasant a title. That 
of Counsellor Heuschrecke — ' Grasshopper' — though not offen- 
sive, looks much more like a piece of fancy work than a * fair 
business transaction.' The same may be said of Blumine — 
* Flower-Goddess' — the heroine of the fable; and so of the rest. 
"In short, our private opinion is, as we have remarked, that 
the whole story of a correspondence with Germany, a university 
of Nobody-knows-where, a Professor of Things in General, a 
Counsellor Grasshopper, a Flower- Goddess Blumine, and so 
forth, has about as much foundation in truth as the late enter- 
taining account of Sir John Herschel's discoveries in the moon. 
Fictions of this kind are, however, not uncommon, and ought 
not, perhaps, to be condemned with too much severity ; but we 
are not sure that we can exercise the same indulgence in regard 
to the attempt, which seems to be made to mislead the public 
as to the substance of the work before us, and its pretended 
German original. Both purport, as we have seen, to be upon 
the subject of Clothes, or dress. Clothes ; their Origin and In- 
fluence, is the title of the supposed German treatise of Professor 
Teufelsdrockh, and the rather odd name of Sartor Resartus — 
the Tailor Patched — which the present Editor has affixed to 
his pretended commentary, seems to look the same way. But 
though there is a good deal of remark throughout the work in 
a half- serious, half- comic style upon dress, it seems to be in 
reality a treatise upon the great science of Things in General, 
which Teufelsdrockh is supposed to have professed at the uni- 
versity of Nobody-knows-where. Now, without intending to 
adopt a too rigid standard of morals, we own that we doubt a 
little the propriety of offering to the public a treatise on Things 
in General, under the name and in the form of an Essay on 
Dress. For ourselves, advanced as we unfortunately are in the 
journey of life, far beyond the period when dress is practically 
a matter of interest, we have no hesitation in saying, that the 
real subject of the work is to us more attractive than the osten- 



TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. 215 

sible one. But this is probably not the case with the mass of 
readers. To the younger portion of the community, which con- 
stitutes everywhere the very great majority, the subject of dress 
is one of intense and paramount importance. An author who 
treats it appeals, like the poet, to the young men and maidens 
— virginibus puerisque — and calls upon them, by all the mo- 
tives which habitually operate most strongly upon their feelings, 
to buy his book. When, after opening their purses for this pur- 
pose, they have carried home the work in triumph, expecting 
to find in it some particular instruction in regard to the tying 
of their neckcloths, or the cut of their corsets, and meet with 
nothing better than a dissertation on Things in General, they 
will — to use the mildest term — not be in very good humour. 
If the last improvements in legislation, which we have made in 
this country, should have found their way to England, the author, 
we think, would stand some chance of being Lynched. Whether 
his object in this piece of ' supercherie be merely pecuniary profit, 
or whether he takes a malicious pleasure in quizzing the Dan- 
dies, we shall not undertake to say. In the latter part of the 
work, he devotes a separate chapter to this class of persons, 
from the tenour of which we should be disposed to conclude, 
that he would consider any mode of divesting them of their pro- 
perty very much in the nature of a spoiling of the Egyptians. 

" The only thing about the work, tending to prove that it 
is what it purports to be, a commentary on a real German 
treatise, is the style, which is a sort of Babylonish dialect, not 
destitute, it is true, of richness, vigour, and at times a sort of 
singular felicity of expression, but very strongly tinged through- 
out with the peculiar idiom of the German language. This 
quality in the style, however, may be a mere result of a great 
familiarity with German literature ; and we cannot, therefore, 
look upon it as in itself decisive, still less as outweighing so 
much evidence of an opposite character." — North- American 
Review, No. 89, October 1835. 

IV. New-England Editors. 

" The Editors have been induced, by the express desire of 
many persons, to collect the following sheets out of the ephe- 
meral pamphlets* in which they first appeared, under the con- 
* Fr user's (London) Magazine, 1833-4. 



£sS APPENDIX. 

viction that they contain in themselves the assurance of a longer 
date. 

" The Editors have no expectation that this little Work will 
have a sudden and general popularity. They will not under- 
take, as there is no need, to justify the gay costume in which 
the Author delights to dress his thoughts, or the German idioms 
with which he has sportively sprinkled his pages. It is his 
humour to advance the gravest speculations upon the gravest 
topics in a quaint and burlesque style. If his masquerade of- 
fend any of his audience, to that degree that they will not hear 
what he has to say, it may chance to draw others to listen to 
his wisdom ; and what work of imagination can hope to please 
all ? But we will venture to remark that the distaste excited 
by these peculiarities in some readers is greatest at first, and 
is soon forgotten ; and that the foreign dress and aspect of the 
Work are quite superficial, and cover a genuine Saxon heart. 
We believe, no book has been published for many years, written 
in a more sincere style of idiomatic English, or which discovers 
an equal mastery over all the riches of the language. The 
Author makes ample amends for the occasional eccentricity of 
his genius, not only by frequent bursts of pure splendour, but 
by the wit and sense which never fail him. 

" But what will chiefly commend the Book to the discerning 
reader is the manifest design of the work, which is, a Criticism 
upon the Spirit of the Age — we had almost said, of the hour— 
in which we live ; exhibiting in the most just and novel light 
the present aspects of Religion, Politics, Literature, Arts, and 
Social Life. Under all his gaiety the Writer has an earnest 
meaning, and discovers an insight into the manifold wants and 
tendencies of human nature, which is very rare among our po- 
pular authors. The philanthropy and the purity of moral sen- 
timent, which inspire the work, will find their way to the heart 
of every lover of virtue." — Preface to Sartor Resartus : Boston, 
1835, 1837. 

Sunt, Fuerunt vel Fuere. 

London, 10th June 183S. 



SUMMARY. 



BOOK I. 

Chap. I. Preliminary. 

No Philosophy of Clothes yet, notwithstanding all our Science, 
Strangely forgotten that Man is by nature a naked animal. The Eng- 
lish mind ail-too practically absorbed for any such inquiry. Not so, 
deep-thinking Germany. Advantage of Speculation having free course. 
Editor receives from Professor Teufelsdrockh his new Work on Clothes. 

(p- 1-) 

Chap II. Editorial Difficulties. 

How to make known Teufelsdrockh and his Book to English read- 
ers ; especially such a book? Editor receives from the Hofrath Hei> 
schrecke a letter promising Biographic Documents. Negotiations with 
Oliver Yorke. Sartor Resartus conceived. Editor's assurances and 
advice to his British reader, (p. 5.) 

Chap. III. Reminiscences. 

Teufelsdrockh at Weissnichtwo. Professor of Things in Genera? 
at the University there : Outward aspect and character ; memorable 
coffee-house utterances ; domicile and watch-tower : Sights thence oi 
City-Life by day and by night ; with reflections thereon. Old 'Lisa 
and her ways. Character of Hofrath Heuschrecke, and his relation to 
Teufelsdrockh. (p. 9.) 

Chap. IV. Characteristics. 

Teufelsdrockh and his Work on Clothes : Strange freedom of speech ; 
transcendentalism ; force of insight and expression ; multifarious learn* 



21 8 SUMMARY. 

ing : Style poetic, uncouth : Comprehensiveness of his humour and 
moral feeling. How the Editor once saw him laugh. Different kinds 
of Laughter and their significance, (p. 18.) 

Chap. V. The World in Clothes. 

Futile cause-and-effect Philosophies. Teufelsdrockh's Orbis Ves- 
titus. Clothes first invented for the sake of Ornament. Picture of our 
progenitor, the Aboriginal Savage. Wonders of growth and progress 
in mankind's history. Man defined as a Tool-using Animal, (p. 23.) 

Chap. VI. Aprons. 

Divers Aprons in the world with divers uses. The Military and 
Police Establishment Society's working Apron. The Episcopal Apron 
with its corner tucked in. The Laystall. Journalists now our only 
Kings and Clergy, (p, 28.) 

Chap. VII. Miscellaneous-Historical. 

How Men and Fashions come and go. German Costume in the 
fifteenth century. By what strange chances do we live in History ! 
The costume of Bolivar's Cavalry, (p. 30.) 

Chap. VIII. The World out of Clothes. 

Teufelsdrockh's Theorem, " Society founded upon Cloth;" his Me- 
thod, Intuition quickened by Experience. — The mysterious question, 
Who am I ? Philosophic systems all at fault : A deeper meditation 
has always taught, here and there an individual, that all visible things 
are appearances only ; but also emblems and revelations of God. Teu- 
felsdrockh first comes upon the question of Clothes : Baseness to which 
Clothing may bring us. (p. 34.) 

Chap. IX. Adamitism. 

The universal utility of Clothes, and their higher mystic virtue, 
illustrated. Conception of Mankind stripped naked ; and immediate 
consequent dissolution of civilised Society, (p. 39.) 



SUMMARY. 219 



Chap. X. Pure Reason. 

A Naked World possible, nay actually exists, under the clothed 
one. Man, in the eye of Pure Reason, a visible God's Presence. The 
beginning of all wisdom, to look fixedly on Clothes till they become 
transparent. Wonder, the basis of Worship : Perennial in man. Mo- 
dern Sciolists who cannot wonder : Teufelsdrockh's contempt for, and 
advice to them. (p. 43.) 

Chap. XI. Prospective. 

Nature not an Aggregate, but a Whole. All visible things are em- 
blems, Clothes ; and exist for a time only. The grand scope of the 
Philosophy of Clothes. — Biographic Documents arrive. Letter from 
Heuschrecke on the importance of Biography. Heterogeneous cha- 
racter of the documents: Editor sorely perplexed; but desperately 
grapples with his work. (p. 47.) 



BOOK II. 

Chap. I. Genesis. 



Old Andreas Futteral and Gretchen his wife: their quiet home. 
Advent of a mysterious stranger, who deposits with them a young in- 
fant, the future Herr Diogenes Teufelsdrockh. After-yearnings of the 
youth for his unknown Father. Sovereign power of Names and Nam- 
ing. Diogenes a flourishing Infant, (p. 55.) 

Chap. II. Idyllic. 

Happy Childhood ! Entepfuhl : Sights, hearings and experiences 
of the boy Teufelsdrockh ; their manifold teaching. Education ; what 
it can do, what cannot. Obedience our universal duty and destiny. 
Gneschen sees the good Gretchen pray. (p. 61.) 



2 2o SUMMARY. 

Chap. III. Pedagogy. 

Teufelsdrockh's School. His Education. Eow the ever -flowing 
Kuhbach speaks of Time and Eternity. The Hinterschlag Gymna- 
sium : rude Boys ; and pedant Professors. The need of true Teachers, 
and their due recognition. Father Andreas dies ; and Teufelsdrockh 
learns the secret of his birth : His reflections thereon. The Nameless 
University. Statistics of Imposture much wanted. Bitter fruits of 
Eationalism : Teufelsdrockh's religious difficulties. The young Eng- 
lishman Herr Towgood. Modern Friendship, (p. 69.) 

Chap. IV. Getting under Way. 

The grand thaumaturgie Art of Thought. Difficulty in fitting Cap- 
ability to Opportunity, or of getting under way. The advantage of 
Hunger and Bread-Studies. Teufelsdrockh has to enact the stern mo- 
nodrama of No object and no rest. Sufferings as Auscultator. Given 
up as a man of genius. Zahdarm House. Intolerable presumption of 
young men. Irony and its consequences. Teufelsdrockh's Epitaph on 
Count Zahdarm. (p. 82.) 

Czap. V. BoKiance. 

Teufelsdrockh gives up his Profession. The heavenly mystery of 
Love. Teufelsdrockh's feeling of worship towards women. First and 
only love. Blumine. Happy hearts and free tongues. The infinite 
nature of Fantasy. Love's joyful progress ; sudden dissolution; and 
final catastrophe, (p. 92.) 

Chap. VI. Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh. 

Teufelsdrockh's demeanour thereupon. Turns pilgrim. A xast 
wistful look on native Entepfuhl: Sunset amongst primitive Moun- 
tains. Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four. Thoughts on View- 
hunting. Wanderings and Sorrowings, (p. 102.) 

Chap. VII. The Everlasting No, 

Loss of Hope, and of Belief. Frofit-and-Loss Philosophy. Teu- 
felsdrockh in his darkness and despair still clings to Truth and follows 



SUMMARY. 22S 

Duty. Inexpressible pains and fears of Unbelief. Fever-crisis : Pro- 
test against the Everlasting No : Baphometic Fire-baptism, (p. 110.) 



Chap. VIII. Centre of Indifference. 

Teufelsdrockh turns now outwardly to the Not-me; and finds whole- 
soiner food. Ancient Cities: Mystery of their origin and growth: 
Invisible inheritances and possessions. Power and virtue of a true 
Book. Wagram Battlefield: War. Great Scenes beheld by the Pil- 
grim : Great Events, and Great Men. Napoleon, a divine missionary, 
preaching. La carrier e ouverte aux ialens. Teufelsdrockh at the North 
Cape : Modern means of self-defence. Gunpowder and duelling. The 
Pilgrim, despising his miseries, reaches the Centre of Indifference. 
(p. 117.) 

Chap. IX. The Everlasting Yea. 

Temptations in the Wilderness : Victory over the Tempter. An- 
nihilation of Self. Belief in God, and love to Man. The Origin of 
Evil, a problem ever requiring to be solved anew : Teufelsdrockh's 
solution. Love of Happiness a vain whim: A Higher in man than 
Love of Happiness. The Everlasting Yea. Worship of Sorrow. Vol- 
taire : his task now finished. Conviction worthless, impossible, with- 
out Conduct. The true Ideal, the Actual : Up and work ! (p. 126.) 



Chap. X. Pause. 

Conversion ; a spiritual attainment peculiar to the modern Era. 
Teufelsdrockh accepts Authorship as his divine calling. The scope of 
the command Thou shalt not steal. — Editor begins to suspect the au- 
thenticity of the Biographical documents ; and abandons them for the 
great Clothes volume. Ptesult of the preceding ten Chapters : Insight 
into the character of Teufelsdrockh : His fundamental beliefs, and how 
he was forced to seek and find them. (p. 136.) 



222 SUMMARY. 



BOOK III. 

Chap. I. Incident in Modern History. 

Story of George Fox the Quaker; and his perennial suit of Leather. 
A man God-possessed, witnessing for spiritual freedom and manhood, 
(p. 143.) 

Chap. II. Church- Clothes. 

Church - Clothes denned; the Forms under which the Beligious 
Principle is temporarily embodied. Outward Eeligion originates by 
Society : Society becomes possible by Religion. The condition of 
Church- Clothes in our time. (p. 147.) 

Chap. III. Symbols. 

The benignant efficacies of Silence and Secrecy. Symbols ; reve- 
lations of the Infinite in the Finite : Man everywhere encompassed 
by them ; lives and works by them. Theory of Motive-millwrights, a 
false account of human nature. Symbols of an extrinsic value; as 
Banners, Standards: Of intrinsic value; as Works of Art, Lives and 
Deaths of Heroic men. Religious Symbols ; Christianity. Symbols 
hallowed by Time ; but finally defaced and desecrated. Many super- 
annuated Symbols in our time, needing removal, (p. 150.) 

Chap. IV. Helotage. 

Heuschrecke's Malthusian Tract, and Teufelsdrockh's marginal 
notes thereon. The true workman, for daily bread, or spiritual bread, 
to be honoured; and no other. The real privation of the Poor not 
poverty or toil, but ignorance. Over-population : With a world like 
ours and wide as ours, can there be too many men? Emigration. 
(p. 156.) 

Chap. V. The Phoenix. 

Teuf elsdrockh considers Society as dead ; its soul (Religion) gone, 
its body (existing Institutions) going. Utilitarianism, needing little far- 



SUMMARY. 223 

ther preaching, is now in full activity of destruction. — Teufelsdrockh 
would yield to the Inevitable, accounting that the best : Assurance of 
a fairer Living Society, arising, Phoenix-like, out of the ruins of the 
old dead one. Before that Phoenix death-birth is accomplished, long 
time, struggle, and suffering must intervene, (p. 160.) 

Chap. VI. Old Clothes, 

Courtesy due from all men to all men : The Body of Man a Reve* 
lation in the Flesh. Teufelsdrockh's respect for Old Clothes, as the 
" Ghosts of Life." Walk inMonmouth Street, and meditations there, 
(p. 165.) 

Chap. VII. Organic Filaments. 

Destruction and Creation ever proceed together ; and organic fila- 
ments of the Future are even now spinning. Wonderful connection 
of each man with all men ; and of each generation with ail genera- 
tions, before and after : Mankind is One. Sequence and progress of 
all human work, whether of creation or destruction, from age to age. — 
Titles, hitherto derived from Fighting, must give way to others. Kings 
will remain and their title. Political Freedom, not to be attained by 
any mechanical contrivance. Hero-worship, perennial amongst men; 
the cornerstone of polities in the Future. Organic filaments of the 
New Religion : Newspapers and Literature. Let the faithful soul take 
courage 1 (p. 168.) 

Chap. VIII. Natural Supernaturalism. 

Deep significance of Miracles. Littleness of human Science : Di- 
vine incomprehensibility of Nature. Custom blinds us to the miracul- 
Gusness of daily-recurring miracles ; so do Names. Space and Time, 
appearances only ; forms of human Thought : A glimpse of Immor- 
tality. How Space hides from us the wondrousness of our commonest 
powers ; and Time, the divinely miraculous course of human history. 
(p. 176.) 

Chap. IX. Circumspective. 

Recapitulation. Editor congratulates the few British readers who 
have accompanied Teufelsdrockh through all his speculations. The 



224 SUMMARY. 

true use of the Sartor Besartus, to exhibit the Wonder of daily life 
and common things ; and to show that all Forms are but Clothes, and 
temporary. Practical inferences enough will follow, (p. 185.) 

Chap. X. The Dandiacal Body. 

The Dandy defined. The Dandiacal Sect a new modification of the 
primeval superstition Self -worship : How to be distinguished. Their 
Sacred Books (Fashionable Novels) unreadable. Dandyism's Articles 
of Faith. — Brotherhood of Poor- Slaves; vowed to perpetual Poverty; 
worshippers of Earth ; distinguished by peculiar costume and diet. 
Picture of a Poor-Slave Household ; and of a Dandiacal. Teuf elsdrockh 
fears these two Sects may spread, till they part all England between 
thexn, and then frightfully collide, (p. 188.) 

Chap. XI. Tailors. 

Injustice done to Tailors, actual and metaphorical. Their rights 
and great services will one day be duly recognised, (p. 199.) 

Chap. XII. Farewell. 

Teufelsdrockh's strange manner of speech, but resolute, truthful 
character : His purpose seemingly to proselytise, to unite the wakeful 
earnest in these dark times. Letter from Hofrath Heuschrecke an- 
nouncing that Teufelsdrockh has disappeared from Weissnichtwo. 
Editor guesses he will appear again. Friendly Farewell, (p. 202.) 



INDEX. 



Action the true end of Man, 108, in. 
Actual, the, the true Ideal, 135, 136. 
Adamitism, 39. 
Afflictions, merciful, 133. 
Ambition, 71. 
Apprenticeships, 84. > 
Aprons, use and significance of, 29. 
Art, all true Works of, symbolic, 154. 

Baphometic Fire-baptism, 117. 

Battle-field, a, 119. 

Battle, Life-, our, 59 ; with Folly and Sin, 

86, 88. 
Being, the boundless Phantasmagoria of, 

3 6 - 

Belief and Opinion, 134, 135. 

Bible of Universal History, 122, 134. 

Biography, meaning and uses of, 51 ; sig- 
nificance of biographic facts, 139. 

Blumine, 95 ; her environment, 96 ; cha- 
racter^ and relation to Teufelsdrbckh, 
97 ; blissful bonds rent asunder, 100 ; 
on her way to England, 106. 

Bolivar's Cavalry-uniform, 33. 

Books, influence of, 119, 137. 

Childhood, happy season of, 6x ; early in- 
fluences and sports, 63. 

Christian Faith, a good Mother's simple 
version of the, 68 ; Temple of the, now 
in ruins, 133; Passive-half of, 134. 

Christian Love, 130, 132. 

Church -Clothes, 147; living and dead 
Churches, 148 ; the modern Church and 
its Newspaper-Pulpits, 174. 

Circumstances, influence of, 64. 

Clergy, the, with their surplices and cas- 
sock-aprons girt-on, 29, 145. 

Clothes, not a spontaneous growth of the 
human animal, but an artificial device, 
2; analogy between the Costumes of 
the body and the Customs of the spirit, 
23 ; Decoration the first purpose of 
Clothes, 26; what Clothes have done 
for us, and what they threaten to do, 
27, 38 ; fantastic garbs of the Middle 
Ages, 31; a simple costume, 33; tan- 



gible and mystic influences of Clothes, 
34, 40; animal and human Clothing 
contrasted, 37 ; a Court-Ceremonial mi- 
nus Clothes, 41 ; necessity for Clothes, 
43; transparent Clothes, 45; all Em- 
blematic things are Clothes, 49, 187; 
Genesis of the modern Clothes-Philo- 
sopher, 55; Character and conditions 
needed, 141, 143 ; George Fox's suit of 
Leather, 144 ; Church-Clothes, 147; Old- 
Clothes, 165 ; practical inferences, 188. 

Codification, 46. 

Combination, value of, 92, 204. 

Commons, British House of, 28. 

Concealment. See Secrecy. 

Constitution, our invaluable British, 172. 

Conversion, 136. 

Courtesy, due to all men, 165. 

Courtier, a luckless, 33. 

Custom the greatest of Weavers, 179. 

Dandy, mystic significance of the, 188 ; 

dandy worship, 190 ; sacred books, 191 ; 

articles of faith, 193 ; a dandy house- 
hold, 197 ; tragically undermined by 

growing Drudgery, 198.^ 
Death, nourishment even in, 73, 116. 
Devil, internecine war with the, 8, > 82, 

117, 127 ; cannot now so much as believe 

in him, 115. 
Dilettantes and Pedants, 47 ; patrons of 

Literature, 87. 
Diogenes, 146. 
Doubt can only be removed by Action, 

135. See Unbelief. 
Drudgery contrasted with Dandyism, 193 ; 

* Communion^ of Drudges/ and what 

may come of it, 198. 
Duelling, a picture of, 125. 
Duty, no longer a divine Messenger and 

Guide, but a false earthly Fantasm, 112, 

113; infinite nature of, 135. 

Editor's first acquaintance with Teufels- 
drbckh and his Philosophy of Clothes, 
4 ; efforts to make known his discovery 
to British readers, 5 ; admitted into the 

Q 



226 



INDEX. 



Teufelsdrockh watch-tower, 13, 22 ; first 
feels the pressure of his task, 34 ; his 
bulky Weissnichtwo Packet, 50; stre- 
nuous efforts to evolve some historic 
order out of such interminable docu- 
mentary confusion, 54 ; partial success, 
61, 69, 107 ; mysterious hints, 139, 162 ; 
astonishment and hesitation, 172; con- 
gratulations, 186; farewell, 202. 

Education, influence of early, 64 ; insig- 
nificant portion depending on Schools, 
70 ; educational Architects, 73 ; the in- 
spired Thinker, 157. ^ 

Emblems, all visible things, 49. 

Emigration, 159. 

Eternity, looking through Time, 13, 50, 

154- 
Evil, Origin of, 131. 
Eyes and Spectacles, 47. 

Facts, engraved Hierograms, for which 
the fewest have the key, 140. 

Faith, the one thing needful, in. 

Fantasy, the true Heaven-gate or Hell- 
gate of man, 99, 152. 

Fashionable Novels, 191. 

Fatherhood, 58. 

Feebleness, the true misery, 113. 

Fire, and vital fire, 48, 118. 

Force, universal presence of, 48. 

Fortunatus' Wishing-hat, 180,^ 182. 

Fox's, George, heavenward aspirations and 
earthly independence, 144. 

Eraser's Magazine, 6, 207. 

Frederick the Great, symbolic glimpse of, 
55- 

Friendship, now obsolete, 81; an incre- 
dible tradition, 114, 160; how it were 
possible, 148, 204. 

Futteral and his Wife, 55. 

Future, organic filaments of the, 168. 

Genius, the world's treatment of, 86. 

German speculative Thought, 3, 9, 18, 21, 
37 ; historical researches, 25, 51. 

Gerund-grinding, 72. 

Ghost, an authentic, 183. 

God, the unslumbering, omnipresent, eter- 
nal, 36; God's presence manifested to 
our eyes and hearts, 44; an absentee 
God, 112. 

Goethe's inspired melody, 175. 

Good, growth and propagation of, 68. 

Great Men, 122. ^ See Man. 

Gullibility, blessings of, 77. 

Gunpowder, use of, 27, 124, 

Habit, how, makes dullards of us all, 38. 

Half-men, 127. 

Happiness, the whim of, 131. 

Hero-worship, the corner-stone of all So- 
ciety, 174. 

Heuschrecke and his biographic docu- 
ments, 7 ; his loose, zigzag, thin-visaged 



character, 16 ; unaccustomed eloquence, 
and interminable documentary super- 
fluities, 51; bewildered^ darkness, 205. 

History, all-inweaving tissue of, 13; by 
what strange chances do we live in, 33 ; 
a perpetual Revelation, 122, 133, 175. 

Homer's Iliad, 155. 

Hope, this world emphatically the place 
of, in ; false shadows of, 128. 

Horse, his own tailor, 37. 

Ideal, the, exists only in the Actual, 135, 

137; 

Imagination. See Fantasy. 
Immortality, a glimpse of, 181. 
Imposture, statistics of, 76. 
Independence, foolish parade of, 161, 173. 
Indifference, centre of, 117. 
Infant intuitions and acquirements, 60; 

genius and dulness, 64. 
Inspiration, perennial, 134, 144, 175. 
Invention, 26, no. 
Invisible, the, Nature the visible Garment 

of, 37 ; invisible bonds, binding all Men 

together, 41 ; the Visible and Invisible, 

45, 150- 
Irish, the, Poor-Slave, 194. 
Isolation, 74. 

Jesus of Nazareth, our divinest Symbol, 
155, 158. 

King, our true, chosen for us in Heaven, 

172. 
Kingdom, a man's, 83. 
Know thyself, and what thou canst work 

at, 1x4. 

Labour, sacredness of, 157. 

Land-owning, trade of, 88. 

Language, the Garment of Thought, 49 ; 
dead vocables, 72. 

Laughter, significance of, 22. 

Lieschen, 15. 

Life, Human, picture of, 13, 104, 118, 129; 
life-purpose, 92 ; speculative mystery of, 
114, 166, 183 ; the most important trans- 
action in, 116 ; nothingness of, 126, 127. 

Light the beginning of all Creation, 135. 

Logic-mortar and wordy Air-castles, 36; 
underground workshop of Logic, 46, 
152. 

Louis XV., ungodly age of, 113. 

Love, what we emphatically name, 93 ; 
pyrotechnic phenomena of, 93, 152 ; not 
altogether a delirium, 99 ; how possible, 
in its highest form, 131, 148, 204. 

Ludicrous, feeling and instances of the, 
32, 124. 

Magna Charta, 187. 
Malthus's over-population panic, 156. 
Man, by nature naked, 2, 38, 42 ; essen- 
tially a tool-using animal, 27 ; the true 



INDEX. 



227 



Shekinah, 44 ; a divine Emblem, 49, 150, 
152, 165, 184 ; two men alone honour- 
able, 157. See Thinking Man. 

Metaphors the stuff of Language, 49. ^ 

Metaphysics inexpressibly unproductive, 
36, 40. 

Milton, 113. 

Miracles, significance of, 176, 182. 

Monmouth -Street, and its "Ou* clo' " 
Angels of Doom, 167. 

Mother's, a, religious influence, 68. 

Motive-Millwrights, 152. 

Mountain scenery, 105. 

Mystery, all-pervading domain of, 47. 

Nakedness and hypocritical Clothing, 38, 
43; a naked Court -Ceremonial, 41 ; a 
naked Duke addressing a naked House 
of Lords, 42. 

Names, significance and influence of, 59, 
179. 

Napoleon and his Political Evangel, 123. 

Nature, the God-written Apocalypse of, 
35, 44 ; not an Aggegate but a Whole, 
48, 106, 169, 178; Nature alone antique, 
71 ; sympathy with, 104, 123 ; the 'Liv- 
ing Garment of God,' 130; Laws of 
Nature, 177. 

Necessity, brightened into Duty, 67. 

Newspaper Editors, 30 ; our Mendicant 
Friars, 174. 

Nothingness of life, 126* 

Obedience, the lesson of, 68, 172. 

Orpheus, 182. 

Over-population, 156. 

Own, conservation of a man's, 138. 

Paradise and Fig-leaves, 25 ; prospective 

Paradises, 93, 100. 
Passivity and Activity, 67, in. 
Past, the, inextricably linked with the 

Present, 118 ; forever extant, 180. 
Paupers, what to do with, 159. 
Peace-Era, the much-predicted, 121. 
Peasant Saint, the, 158. 
Pelhatn, and the Whole Duty of Dandies, 

192. 
Perseverance, law of, 164. 
Person, mystery of a, 44, 90, 92, 165. 
Philosophies, Cause-and-Effect, 24. 
Phcenix Death-birth, 164, 168, 186. 
Property, 138. 
Proselytising, 5, 204. 

Radicalism, Speculative, 9, 19, 43. 
Raleigh's, Sir Walter, fine mantle, 33. 
Religion, dead letter and living spirit of, 

80 ; weaving new vestures, 148, 191. 
Reverence, early growth of, 68 ; indispen- 

sability of, 173. 
Richter, 22. 

Saints, living Communion of, 170, 175. 



Sarcasm, the panoply of, 90. 

Sartor Resartus, genesis of, 5 ; its pur- 
pose, 185. 

Saturn or Chronos, 89. 

Savage, the aboriginal, 26. 

Scarecrow, significance of the, 42. 

Sceptical goose-cackle, 46. 

School education, insignificance of, 70, 72 ; 
tin -kettle terrors and incitements, 71; 
need of Soul-Architects, 73. 

Science, the Torch of, 1 ; the Scientific 
Head, 46. 

Secrecy, benignant efficacies of, 150. 

Self-activity, 18. 

Self-annihilation, 128. 

Shame, divine, mysterious growth of, 27 ; 
the soil of all Virtue, 151. 

Silence, 124 ; the element in which all 
great things fashion themselves, 150. 

Simon's, Saint, aphorism of the golden 
age, 163 ; a false application, 205. 

Smoke, advantage of consuming one's, 
104. 

Society founded upon Cloth, 34, 41, 43 ; 
how Society becomes possible, 148 ; so- 
cial Death and New -Birth, 149, 163, 
169, 186 ; as good as extinct,.. 160. 

Solitude. See Silence. _ 

Sorrow-pangs of Self-deliverance, 104, no, 
in ; divine depths of Sorrow, 130 ; Wor- 
ship of Sorrow, 133. 

Space and Time, the Dream-Canvas upon 
which Life is imaged, 36, 44, 176, 180. 

Spartan wisdom, 158. 

Speculative intuition, 35. See German. 

Speech, great, but not greatest, 151. 

Sphinx-riddle, the Universe a, 88. 

Stealing, 138, 158. 

Stupidity, blessings of, 112. 

Style, varieties of, 49. 

Suicide, 115. 

Summary, 217. 

Sunset, 63, 106. 

Swallows, migrations and cooperative in- 
stincts of, 66. 

Swineherd, the, 64. 

Symbols, 150 ; wondrous agency of, 151 
extrinsic and intrinsic, 154 ; superan- 
nuated, 156, 161. 

Tailors, symbolic significance of, 200. 

Temptations in the wilderness, 126. 

Testimonies of Authors, 211. 

Teufelsdrbckh's Philosophy of Clothes, 4 ; 
he proposes a toast, 9 ; his personal 
aspect, and silent deepseated Sanscu- 
lottism, to ; thawed into speech, 12 ; 
memorable watch-tower utterances, 13 ; 
alone with the Stars, 15 ; extremely 
miscellaneous environment, 15 ; plain- 
ness of speech, 19 ; universal learning, 
and multiplex literary style, 20 ; am- 
biguous-looking morality, 21 ; one in- 
stance of laughter, 22 ; almost *otal want 



228 



INDEX. 



of arrangement, 23 ; feeling of the lu- 
dicrous, 32 ; speculative Radicalism, 43 ; 
a singular Character, 51 ; Genesis pro- 
perly an Exodus, 55 ; unprecedented 
Name, 59 ; infantine experience, 60 ; 
Pedagogy, 69 ; an almost Hindoo Pas- 
sivity, 69; school -boy jostling, 71 ; he- 
terogeneous University-Life, 75 ; fever- 
paroxysms of Doubt, 79 ; first practical 
knowledge of the English, 80 ; getting 
under way, 82 ; ill success, 86 ; glimpse 
of high -life, 87; casts himself on the 
Universe, 92 ; reverent feeling towards 
Women, 93 ; frantically in love, 94 ; firs! 
interview with Blumine, 97 ; inspired 
moments, 98 ; short of practical kitchen- 
stuff, 101 ; ideal bliss, and actual cata- 
strophe, 102 ; sorrows, and peripatetic 
stoicism, 103 ; a parting glimpse of his 
Beloved on her way to England, 106 ; 
how he overran the whole earth, 107 ; 
Doubt darkened into Unbelief, 11 1 ; 
love of Truth, 113 ; a feeble unit, amidst 
a threatening Infinitude, 114 ; Bapho- 
metic Fire-baptism, 117 ; placid indiffer- 
ence, 117 ; a Hyperborean intruder, 124 ; 
Nothingness of life, 126 ; Temptations 
in the wilderness, 126 ; dawning of a 
better day, 129 ; the Ideal in the Actual, 
135; finds his true Calling, 137; his 
Biography a symbolic Adumbration, 
significant to those who can decipher it, 
139 ; a wonder-lover, seeker and worker, 



144; in Monmouth -Street among the 

Hebrews, 167 ; concluding hints, 203 ; 

his public History not yet done, perhaps 

the better part only beginning, 206. 
Thinking Man, a, the worst enemy of 

the Prince of Darkness, 83, 137 ; true 

Thought can never die, 170. 
Time-Spirit, life -battle with the, 59, 89; 

Time, the universal wonder-hider, 182. 
Titles of Honour, 171. 
Tools, influence of, 27 ; the Pen, most 

miraculous of tools, 137. 

Unbelief, era of, 78, 112 ; Doubt darken- 
ing into, in ; escape from, 127. 
Universities, 76. 
Utilitarianism, in, 161. 

View-hunting and diseased Self-conscious- 
ness, 107. 
Voltaire, 133 ; the Parisian Divinity, 174. 

War, 118. 

Wisdom, 45. 

Woman's influence, 93. 

Wonder the basis of Worship, 46 ; region 

of, 187. 
Words, slavery to, 36; Word-mongering 

and Motive-grinding, 112. 
Workshop of Life, 137. See Labour. 

Young Men and Maidens, 88, 92. 



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THE 

FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. 

Edited by JOHN MORLEY. 

The following are among the Contributors : 



J. S. Mill. 
Professor Huxley. 
Professor Tyndall. 
Dr. von Sybel. 
Professor Cairnes. 
Emile de Laveleye. 
George Henry Lewes. 
Frederic Harrison. 

. ^^ALTER BAGEHOT. 



Professor Beesly. 
A. C. Swinburne. 
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
Herman Me ri vale. 
Edward A. Preeman. 
William Morris. 
f. w. farrar. 
Professor Henry Mor- 
ley. 



J. Hutchison Stirling. 
W. T. Thornton. 
Professor Bain. 
Professor Fawcett. 
Hon. r. Lytton. 
Anthony Trollope. 
The Editor. 

etc. ETC. 



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